Improving the Connection Between Grammar and Culture in Today’s Foreign Language Classroom

The purpose of this paper was to examine the existing degree of integration between grammatical and cultural elements in beginning college level German foreign language classrooms. Out of this analysis, some of the shortcomings to successful integration were identified and sample activities were created to address these shortcomings while demonstrating ways to further strengthen the connection between grammar and culture.

Chapter One provides a theoretical background to the concept of integration. It focuses on the communicative approach to teaching and the 1996 Standards for Foreign Language Learning, both of which support a connection between grammar and culture even at the beginning levels of foreign language learning. Chapter Two then explores to what degree two beginning German textbooks based on these approaches integrate grammatical and cultural elements as the approaches promote. This analysis revealed that both Deutsch: Na klar! An Introductory German Course and Kontakte: A Communicative Appraoch have underdeveloped elements of culture (emphasizing primarily the Products of the National Standards’ 3 P’s of culture while neglecting Practices and Perspectives). As a result, very little culture is present with which to integrate grammar, and what limited culture is present is rarely connected to grammar, thus reflecting only minimal integration in both textbooks despite theoretical support for it.

In response to these findings, Chapter Three provides four sample activities that better develop culture while also connecting it more closely with grammar. These exercises demonstrate that improved integration is possible, but they also expose some of the risks of a stronger connection between grammar and culture as well. The sample activities devote substantially more time to culture, for example, which some teachers might resist adding to an already over-filled curriculum. In addition, combining culture with grammar could overwhelm students with too many new elements at once if activities are not carefully constructed.

As a result, this paper concluded that integrating grammar and culture is desirable and beneficial in many ways as the communicative approach and the National Standards point out, but the reality of integration is complex and requires a careful balancing of many factors in order to be accomplished successfully.