Review: GEMs Workshop "Teaching Culture"

FESTIVITIES, HOLIDAYS AND CULTURE IN THE CLASSROOM

The workshop, titled "Teaching Culture and Planning a Culture Curriculum," was held at the Goethe-Institut in Chicago on January 21, 2023, in cooperation with the AATG Northern Illinois Chapter. It was attended by 15 teachers from the Midwest and had a focus on the topic of festivals and holidays in the DACH region.

Jasmin Root-Joswig, a speaker of the GEMs (German Educational Multipliers) program, opened the workshop with images of Maibäume, Schultüten, Kaffeehäuser, Almabtrieben and Sonnenwendefeuer. In addition to addressing festivals and customs that are not given enough attention in traditional classroom materials, the workshop took a look at developing innovative teaching ideas and activities for competency-based foreign language instruction. The participants were introduced to new teaching methods, and their advantages and disadvantages as well as possible applications tailored to the learning target were discussed. After a lunch break with collegial exchange, Jasmin Root-Joswig provided the participants with a valuable collection of materials, so that the workshop could be concluded with a unit on creating one's own cultural curriculum.