Was Tut Man Wenn...: A Teaching Manual on the Banking, Postal, and Telephone Systems of Germany

Abstract

The focus of this project is on an area that appears to have been lacking in the teaching of German as a foreign language. The teaching of practical business knowledge and knowledge of everyday lifestyles has been limited to specific areas of study in most German language courses and related textbooks. The practical topics that have been covered in the German language classroom are those of value mainly to tourists.These topics are transportation, accommodation, shopping, and restaurants. Practical matters regarding finances and communication have been superficially covered. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to incorporate information on the finance and communication systems in Germany into a package for use in the foreign-language (FL) classroom. The major part of this project was the research conducted in Germany, and the preparation and the writing of the manual. The remainder of the project deals with a discussion on the relevance of the manual's content, the reasoning behind the manual's format, and use of the material in the manual and related authentic materials in the classroom. The information incorporated into the manual was gathered in Germany from interviews with personnel at each of the three institutions, from publications and forms used by each institution, and from trade magazines. The information in the manual is presented in a 'userfriendly' format in English. Relevant German terminology is provided in strategic locations to enable the reader to learn the concepts without being overwhelmed by the terminology. The reader's ability to speak German was also considered in the preparation of the manual. A basic grasp of German is desirable for the reader, however the information contained in the book can still be of use to people with no background in the German language. A draft of the manual's banking chapter was tested in a second-year German classroom, at the secondary school level. The test and its results are discussed in the theoretical portion of this work.