Towards a Cultura Franca ─ Contemporary American Civil and Human Rights Drama in the Foreign Language Classroom

This book is mapping the fields of modern output-oriented teaching, intercultural learning, and drama methods in the foreign language class. It explains that drama-based language learning transcends the usual learning scopes in its practical relevance and its far-reaching contextual implications. By including (inter-)cultural aspects, as well as human and civil rights issues, modern teaching can provide students with new frames of references and shifts their attention from an individualistic worldview towards a more tolerant perception of «the other.» The term of «cultura franca» hints at a liberation of cultural restraints and this is exactly what is indispensable in order to educate students to become the interculturally adept speakers our modern time needs.

Jeannette U. Bottcher studied English and German in Dusseldorf, Bonn, and Berlin. She taught within the regular school system in Germany and England, as well as at Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, where she joined a research project on intercultural competence. She holds a PhD and teaches at Paderborn University, Germany.