1.3 Culture didactics

Culture didactics deals with the teaching of cultural knowledge, the representation (and representability) of cultures, their understanding and the fostering of inter-/transcultural competences (communicative competences involve, for instance, the willingness to communicate with and understand others and the ability to negotiate meaning, attitudes as well as the ability to change perspective, and intercultural understanding). Courses in culture didactics consider culture-related questions of foreign language teaching: Which regional knowledge about a culture’s life and institutions should be taught/acquired? Which levels of intercultural competence can be reached in what way and using which material and media?

Culture didactics is informed by research interests in the domain of cultural studies (e.g. discussions of the concept of culture, the discourse on teaching culture through media, the recognition of the communicative and attitudinal dimension of interculturality as well as the discussion on transculturality) and reacts to the fact that foreign language teaching is increasingly opening up to cultural studies perspectives: By now, the teaching of ‚factual‘ knowledge about a country’s life and institutions („Landeskunde“) has been developed further to an (inter-/trans)cultural-interactive approach; linguistic and cultural interaction are now seen as inextricably linked.

Despite making use of literary texts, culture didactics does not focus on the fostering of literary competences but instead concentrates on the acquisition of cultural knowledge and intercultural abilities through the text and its contextualisation. Understanding language as a part of culture, its characteristics are examined in relation to other cultural characteristics – this way, culture didactics also encourages students to get involved with a foreign language on a meta-level.
For acquiring and enhancing (inter-) cultural knowledge, students have to attend a course in an cultural exercise (“Kulturelle Übung”) during their Bachelor’s. The Master’s programme allows for attending courses that are specifically grounded on culture didactics. On top of that, there is an inter-/transcultural emphasis within the internship modules: If students have been working as foreign language assistants and want their stay abroad to cover the research or subject internship, they will be instructed to contemplate their specifically intercultural position as mediators abroad in preparation and review block courses: they reflect on cultural representations, suitable teaching material and didactic approaches, and on their own intercultural learning process. The potential of inter-/transcultural learning processes in non-institutional environments, especially on class trips to England, was further explored in a two-term research internship project organized in cooperation with a comprehensive school in Göttingen (check our 'cooperations' section).
In the past semesters special courses with regards to Global Learning were developed, which are regularly offered for Master students. In those seminars students are working on questions such as why and how global topics as well as the Education for Sustainable Development should be part of ELT.

Literatur zum Thema:


• Byram, Michael (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Decke-Cornill, Helene & Küster, Lutz (2010). „Interkulturelle Kompetenzen – interkulturelles Lernen.“ In: Decke-Cornill, Helene & Küster, Lutz (Eds.). Fremdsprachendidaktik. Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Narr, 223-241.
• Delanoy, Werner &Volkmann, Laurenz (Eds.) (2006). Cultural Studies in the EFL Classroom. Heidelberg: Winter.
• Eckerth, Johannes & Wendt, Michael (Eds.) (2003). Interkulturelles und transkulturelles Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang.
• Freitag-Hild, Britta (2010). Theorie, Aufgabentypologie und Unterrichtspraxis inter- und transkultureller Literaturdidaktik: 'British fictions of migration' im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Trier: WVT.
• Hallet, Wolfgang (2017). "Kulturdidaktik." In: Surkamp, Carola (Ed.). Metzler Lexikon Fremdsprachendidaktik. Ansätze - Methoden - Grundbegriffe. 2nd ed. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler.
• Hallet, Wolfgang & Nünning, Ansgar (Eds.). Neue Ansätze und Konzepte der Literatur- und Kulturdidaktik. Trier WVT.
• Kramsch, Claire (1993). Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: OUP.