Grenzenlos Deutsch is a full-year curriculum intended as a no-cost alternative to current, more traditional textbooks in the field. It mixes materials rooted in real-world, contemporary communication scenarios, multimedia content, and online learning activities. The Grenzenlos Deutsch curriculum ensures that the topics of discussion in the language classroom are relevant to and reflect today’s world.
The curriculum was developed around four major goals:
1) to employ more diverse voices and real-world contemporary perspectives in the curriculum. For that reason, we include content areas on social and environmental sustainability, non-traditional families, and diverse expressions of “culture” and identity.
2) to address the skyrocketing cost of language textbooks and the lack of interactivity with traditional print texts. This online format provides these materials at no cost and builds interactivity into the web-delivered curriculum.
3) to explore new technological tools that make it possible to develop an interactive, student-centered learning environment. The curriculum is delivered as a website using WordPress and HTML5 tools in order to create a learning experience that seamlessly integrates both multimedia content and interactive learning activities. These activities lead students through their engagement with the content step by step and thus map out strategies for comprehension and language learning.
4) to address the lack of language-learner appropriate content that is publicly available. All of the digital content that was collected and created for the project is available for instructors and students who wish to use it to develop their own activities. Grenzenlos Deutsch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Thirteen German scholars from around the world have collaboratively authored the curriculum with a shared vision to create learning materials that would represent the German-speaking world as we see it and as our students inhabit it, and that would emphasize diversity, inclusion, and social and environmental justice. The lead authors of Grenzenlos Deutsch are Brigetta Abel and Amy Young. Ron Joslin and Louann Terveer serve as the OER and Technical Consultants. The Board of Authors includes: Brigetta M. Abel, Macalester College; Erika Berroth, Southwestern University; Maureen Gallagher, National University of Australia; Adi King; Isolde Mueller, St Cloud State University; Simone Pfleger, University of Alberta; Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers, Library of Congress; Faye Stewart, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Tessa Wegener, Middlebury College German Language School; Amy Young, Central College.
The Grenzenlos Deutsch editorial board is: Brigetta M. Abel, Erika Berroth, Angineh Djavadghazaryans, Maureen Gallagher, Adi King, Karolina May-Chu, Simone Pfleger, Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers, Faye Stewart, Tessa Wegener, Amy Young.
Grenzenlos Deutsch was made possible in part by a Digital Advancement Grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities and by the Mansergh-Stuessy Fund for College Innovation.
For more information:
- Visit the Grenzenlos Deutsch website
- View a video of the authors discussing and demonstrating their work at the March 2021 FL OER Conference
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Brigetta (Britt) M. Abel is Associate Professor (NTT) of German Studies and Director of Writing at Macalester College in St Paul, MN. She is the co-lead author of Grenzenlos Deutsch.
Amy Young is Associate Professor of German and Dean of the Class of 2025 at Central College in Pella, Iowa. She is the co-lead author of Grenzenlos Deutsch.
