Undergraduate Student Interests and the Cultural Content of Textbooks for German

Dechert, Christiane; Kästner, Peter

doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.1989.tb02541.x

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…In addition to preferring a stronger focus on an integrated approach of teaching language and culture, students reported having the greatest interest in learning about varied topics related to daily living, a finding that replicates an earlier study on students' cultural interests in German classes (Dechert & Kastner, ). This suggests that there has been little change in the aspects of German culture about which students enjoy learning most.…”

Section: Discussion and Summarysupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Similarly, Dechert and Kastner () revealed that there was a mismatch between students' specific interests in regard to learning about the target culture and the topics covered by standard textbooks. Their study concluded that undergraduate students enrolled in German courses were most interested in learning about topics concerned with regular, everyday life.…”

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of a Virtual Exchange on Students' Interest in Learning About Culture

Schenker

2013

Foreign Language Annals

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A 12-week electronic exchange was conducted between a third-year German college class in the United States and an advanced English high school class in Germany. The exchange consisted of e-mails between tandem partners, blogs, videoconferences between both classes, and class essays. The study examined the effects of participation in the semester-long cross-cultural, cross-lingual exchange on students' interest in learning about the target culture. The results showed that students' interest in learning about culture was high before and after the exchange. Likewise, students believed that learning about culture is an important part of foreign language learning. The virtual exchange outlined here is an example of a standards-based approach to integrating language and culture instruction.

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Section: Discussion and Summarysupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of a Virtual Exchange on Students' Interest in Learning About Culture

Schenker

2013

Foreign Language Annals

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“…Dechert and Kastner (1989) conducted a content analysis of the cultural content of German textbooks in order to address issues of cultural coverage that remain unresolved today: How much of each topic should be included and how should the quality of presentation be controlled (e.g., to avoid stereotyping)? The cultural areas that they coded included 99 topics in the following areas: art and literature, “current issues, ethnography, geography, history, language and communication, ordinary daily life activities, and social system” (p. 179).…”

Section: Investigating Cultural Content In Language Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Hidden Curriculum in Language Textbooks: Are Beginning Learners of French at U.S. Universities Taught About Canada?

Chapelle¹

2009

The Modern Language Journal

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This study investigated a hidden curriculum in published language teaching materials by tabulating the number of instances that Canada was mentioned in 9 French textbooks and their accompanying workbooks and CD–ROMs. The materials were used at large public universities in the northern United States. For the present study, 2 raters, a Québécois student and an American student of French, found that, on average, 15.3% of the analyzed sections of the textbooks, 6.5% of the workbook sections, and 29.9% of the sections in the CD–ROMs contained Canadian content. Based on a transnational view of culture, which suggests that cultural content in language materials should be chosen in view of local issues (Risager, 2007), I argue that Canada should play a larger role in French teaching materials used in the northern United States. In particular, increased Canadian content might help to create needs for and interest in French, foster learning about the nonneutrality of language, and stimulate discovery of local historical linguistic and cultural diversity.

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“…For the textbook analysis, the analytical categories for approaching Amazigh textbooks were adopted from the work of other foreign language textbook researchers such as Damen (1987), Dechert & Kastner (1989), Feng (2004), and Joiner (1974. A distinction is made in this study between the socio-cultural content and the manner of presentation of the cultural content.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The place of culture in the Amazigh language textbooks in Morocco

Zaid¹,

Allame²

2018

L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature

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This paper investigates the model of Amazigh language teaching in Morocco, which has been declared to be based on the communicative approach. So the objective of the present study is to explore the cultural content of the Amazigh textbooks using content analysis as the main method to process the data drawn from the first, third, and fifth level textbooks. The analysis reveals an over-representation of mainly two aspects of the Amazigh culture, namely the articulation of the value system and the language of social interaction. The presentation of the cultural information is done through drawings and narratives at the expense of photos and dialogues. The drawings do not illustrate the Amazigh native culture but rather report a type of global culture. Therefore, the presentation of culture in the Amazigh textbooks is more geared toward transmitting knowledge about cultural themes, patterns, and behavior than the practical application of that knowledge and the cultivation of the learners' aptitude for their appropriate use, which is one of the aims of the teaching of Amazigh.

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Undergraduate Student Interests and the Cultural Content of Textbooks for German

Cited by 9 publications

References 5 publications

The Effects of a Virtual Exchange on Students' Interest in Learning About Culture

The Effects of a Virtual Exchange on Students' Interest in Learning About Culture

A Hidden Curriculum in Language Textbooks: Are Beginning Learners of French at U.S. Universities Taught About Canada?

The place of culture in the Amazigh language textbooks in Morocco

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