From the Editors

Abstract

Welcome to our spring issue of Die Unterrichtspraxis. We are delighted to present eight articles, representing the full spectrum of learners from middle school to higher education.

Katharina Schuhmann and Laura Smith present an insightful exploratory study on teaching German plurals using a prosodic approach. The article by Didem Uca, Kate Zambon, and Maria Stehle examines hip-hop as a vehicle for teaching social justice in college-level media and cultural studies courses and offers teaching materials that help lead learners to critically examine popular rap songs by Black American and Turkish-German artists. Issues of social justice are also addressed by Traci O'Brien in her article, in which she critically examines some representative publications in this area and advocates for a student-centered, proficiency-based approach that fosters advanced-level language in a literature course – in the target language. Klaus Brandl's contribution also focuses on advanced-level literature classes, demonstrating how task-based principles can be effectively applied to the teaching of literary texts. Project-based language learning in upper-level writing courses is at the center of the article by Lauren Brooks and Katherine Kerschen, in which they provide a syllabus, activities, and assessment models for easy adaptation. Claudia Lynn and Margaret Strair outline an instructional module for an intermediate German course that promotes intercultural competence by guiding learners in object-based inquiry rooted in anthropological material culture perspectives to decode, relate, and transform the untranslatable concept of Heimat. The final two articles describe collaborative projects at the middle-school level. Marium Abugasea Heidt reports on a year-long, collaborative action research study of two middle-school German classes that used an imagined communities curriculum, which helped students feel greater connection with, or ability to relate to, other speakers of German. Karin Baumgartner and her five student-teacher co-authors present a year-long outreach activity, “Sparking interest in German,” where the university students engaged in the AATG/Goethe-Institut-sponsored SPARK program and taught German to local middle schoolers, proposing valuable recommendations for future development.

We are grateful to all authors and reviewers who continue to give their time to write manuscripts and review submissions to support the teaching of German. A big thank you also goes to the members of the Editorial Advisory Board. Siggi Piwek rotated off the Board after two years of service, and we welcome Karina Duncker-Hoffmann to this year's board.

We invite you to help improve and expand the teaching of German by submitting manuscripts and by adding yourself as a reviewer to our database at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/up. If you are interested in writing a book or software review for the journal, please contact the book and software review editor Dr. Dan Walter.

We hope to see many of you in person at the AATG Convention in November!