Kontakte: A Communicative Approach

Your students are changing. Technology is changing. The idea of the classroom is changing. Now, the way your students learn German is changing as well. In preparation for this edition of Kontakte, we conducted extensive research, employing a wide array of research tools including surveys, focus groups, and ethnographic studies to identify the key goals and challenges of the introductory German course. Not surprisingly, communication and cultural competence are among the top goals of the majority of instructors, who are facing the challenges of fewer contact hours, budget cuts, and new course formats that make these goals difficult to achieve.

The Seventh Edition of Kontakte continues to offer a truly communicative approach that supports functional proficiency while responding to these changing needs in new and exciting ways. As a direct result of our research, we created Connect German (www.connectgerman.com), a powerful online learning platform that includes the ebook, the online Arbeitsbuch, an audio/video chat feature, and a brand-new video filmed in Leipzig, thereby offering a flexible solution for the evolving introductory German landscape. Enhanced by these powerful new digital tools, the Seventh Edition of Kontakte does the following:

Engages students in authentic culture and inspires them to communicate with confidence by providing them with the natural contexts they need to develop their language skills

Provides tools for flexibility and easy course administration

Achieves consistent results across the different course formats offered: face-to-face, hybrid, and online.

*Connect German, including but not limited to the workbook/lab manual, the video program, and chat tools, is sold separately and does not come automatically with the purchase of the textbook.

(First and Second Staatsexamen, Göttingen and Fulda) is Oberstudienrätin (German, English, Physical Education) at the Werner-von-Siemens Gymnasium in Bad Harzburg, Germany. She taught German at all levels of instruction at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and she was a Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She is co-author of Assoziationen: Deutsch für die Mittelstufe and the series Lextra – Englisch Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz nach Themen. Her main interests are: the role of vocabulary in language learning, reading strategies, and the role of art in language teaching. She has been a certified ACTFL OPI tester since 1989.

Tracy D. Terrell (late) received his Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin and published extensively in the area of Spanish dialectology. Professor Terrell’s publications on second-language acquisition are widely known in the United States and abroad.

(Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) is Gerhard Helbig Professor of German as a Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics at the University of Leipzig and President of the Institute for Test Research and Test Development in Leipzig, Germany. Before joining the University of Leipzig, he taught at the University of Iowa, Iowa City (1990-1998) and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1988–1990). His main research areas are: second language acquisition, corpus linguistics, language testing and assessment, and language policy. He is (co-) author of over 150 books, book chapters, and journal articles. He has extensive experience in test research and development for all language modalities (speaking, listening, writing, and reading). He has been a certified ACTFL OPI tester since 1989 and tester trainer since 1993. He has been a major contributor to the internationalization efforts of the University of Leipzig, establishing and directing joint BA, MA, and Ph.D. programs with universities in the Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, and the U.S.