and discussion are frequent and welcomed. A mistake- free environment is by no

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1 For me, the ideal German class involves plenty of purposeful and comfortable interaction among students, constant immersion into the target cultures through a large variety of media and authentic input, and an environment wherein curiosity and discussion are frequent and welcomed. A mistake- free environment is by no means the way I would define the ideal German classroom. If a student is not making mistakes, they are also not taking any risks, and I believe that risk- taking has to happen if students are to develop the ability to use language creatively. When students are motivated by a fear of making mistakes, they also do not use the target language as freely, because the most important part of learning and using their second language becomes the ability to do so while avoiding any errors. Instead, my students are encouraged to experiment with the ever- expanding pieces of the German language that they discover during my course, and while they do so it is my goal to make them feel as comfortable as possible with producing the target language in the classroom. With this particular idea must come a number of other elements, including an encouragement of the awareness of what it means to be bilingual. My students are aware that learning a second language is a different process than learning their first, and they are encouraged to reflect on this process, as well as the role their first language plays in the beginning stages of learning about another language and culture. As students are confronted with new vocabulary, for example, they are also actively engaged in thinking about cultural differences embedded in the meaning of

2 many German words, which otherwise often superficially appear to have an equivalent in the L1. In other words, a policy of transparent pedagogy is another important part of my approach. Students are made aware of how I am approaching a topic or activity with them, and why. Furthermore, the mistakes- welcome environment does not imply that I do not find error- correction important for a student s long- term improvement in language use, but my students know when, what, and why I correct. During a practice- oriented exercise, whether the student s language production is oral or written, I provide guided error correction that is focused on the particular purpose for the activity (e.g. a specific structure or skill, such as using the past perfect within a specific contextual framework). I also encourage students to engage in peer correction during pair work or interactive group work in the classroom. One reason I make it explicit that committing errors in the classroom should not be a source of shame: errors made within the confines of a practice activity are opportunities. Students can be led to notice an error, think about the nature of the error as a group, and try to correct it, all with the potential for gaining a little more knowledge about the way German works and without all of the pressure being put on an individual student. I also use guided error correction for written assignments the students do at home. During open- ended communicative phase in the classroom, however, I avoid correcting errors, except through recasts or clarification questions where meaning might be obstructed.

3 Furthermore, I believe in promoting awareness about the difference between ideal language and grammar, and the way that language is actually used among native speakers. Of course, students are confronted with the language in its ideal form when they learn about the different grammatical structures that help construct meaning in the German language. Grammar should always be embedded within a greater real- world context, however, or it essentially becomes meaningless. I make sure to employ many different forms of authentic input, and often, in order to provide a panorama of natural use of the language by both native and non- native German speakers. This input includes a variety of things such as songs, comedy sketches, interviews, films, poems, and newspaper articles. Each kind of input is based on an ultimate communicative task. To give one example, I frequently send students home with web quest assignments, with the objective to explore a website for information on a given topic (such as a local German food, or a youth hostel in a German city). Students come to class with the information they have found, ready to present it and then discuss questions, possible or apparent cultural differences, and opinions they have formed based on the new information. This kind of assignment and the follow- up that it entails allow students to employ background knowledge and the knowledge they have been gaining about the language in order to explore new things and perspectives, and such activities contribute to an expanding awareness that Germany cannot be found within the confines of any textbook. Textbooks can of course provide an excellent starting point, but I believe that students should be made fully aware of the fact that

4 they can start using German to access a new world of information through a plethora of sources, even at the beginning levels of language learning. When thinking about how several different course levels could do very different things with the same input, I also keep in mind the fact that the input and its contents are only as complicated as the task I give my students; the point is, however, that they can all use German to get something out of it! With a lesson involving a song, to give another example, the students do a pre- listening brainstorming activity about what to expect based on the title. Then they listen several times to the whole song, all while searching for familiar words and guessing from context about things they think they have heard. Throughout this process, I am a mediator, collecting the terms and ideas they provide as they verify or modify the information they glean from listening. In one case, we moved to the song lyrics and then looked at the poetic language being used, with the lesson finally culminating in a partner- based activity wherein students wrote short poems on the same topic as the song, presented them to the class, and then explained which they thought was the best and why. I integrate my lesson plans as much as possible in terms of the four skills, rather than explicitly separating and focusing on a single skill- set. Ultimately, it should be clear that exploring culture is a major part of the process of language learning, and I as a teacher cannot be the only one to provide my students with this complicated aspect of the German language. Fostering the discovery of an ever- changing culture also means providing my students with the

5 means and the opportunity to access new perspectives through German on their own, and this inevitably leads to collaboration in my classroom. I strive to foster an environment that is learning- centered, instead of focusing solely on my role as the teacher or on my students filling only the role of the learner. I am constantly searching for new ideas and new kinds of activities, new lenses through which the material at hand can be viewed, new cultural connections that can be made, and new authentic input from all kinds of sources, and this is all in order to give my students an outlet to explore not to give them the impression that there is one answer to be given and that I will always have it. I always encourage curiosity in my classroom, and whenever and wherever my students provide it, it is my goal to leave the classroom that day and find a way for us to use it and to build on it as a group. In turn, I am also engaged in a process of improving and adapting based on the input and individual perspectives that my students bring to class.