The Kulturpass: Strategies for EnhancingCultural Engagement outside theGerman-Language Classroom

Debra N. PragerWashington and Lee University

Daniel J. KramerInstitute of International Education

Targeted and well-attended extracurricular activities bring numerous benefits to foreignlanguage programs in general, and to small German programs in particular. They can supportand reinforce coursework, offer opportunities to practice speaking and listening, foster a senseof community identification, and raise the program’s visibility campus-wide.1 Indeed, lan-guage- and culture-oriented activities—outside class—can be vital to keeping our students en-gaged and motivated to learn more about the language, history, and culture of German speak-ers. In his influential work on second-language education, StephenKrashenargues that culturalcontext is critical to successful language acquisition:

We acquire in just one way – by understanding messages or by obtaining comprehensible input.… This is donewith the aid of extralinguistic context, knowledge of the world, and our previous linguistic competence. This …explains why pictures and other realia are so valuable to the beginning language teacher; they provide context,background information, that helps make input comprehensible. (2009, p. 9)

Similarly, Clare Kramsch asserts that cultural context, “background information,” or an under-standing of attitudes and values in a foreign culture helps to build the bridge between self andother that makes language learning possible at all levels (Kramsch, 2012, p. 77); and JamesDavidheiser and Gregory Wolf argue that for students today, enjoyment is a critical compo-nent of their commitment to language learning: “Students are primarily motivated by affectivefactors, such as having fun with learning the language and liking learning languages in general,much more so than they are motivated by pragmatic factors, such as using the language incareers” (2009, p. 60). It stands to reason, then, that cultural events outside the classroom,when organized creatively and systematically, can directly address four of the “five Cs” offoreign language teaching as articulated in the Standards for Foreign Language Learning inthe 21st Century (ACTFL, 2006): (1) Communication in the target language, (2) Cultural un-derstanding (in particular understanding of cultural practices), (3) Comparison (developing anawareness of similarities and differences between our own and German language and cul-ture), and most important, (4) building Communities (learning to use the target language

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1 An extensive survey of students continuing with German at the high school level after the first year alsosuggests that extracurricular activities play a role in their decision to continue in German, although it plays aless significant role than the top four factors: (1) students’ desire to continue what they started in high school,(2) their perception of German class as being fun, (3) their grades in German, and (4) their interest in the lan-guage (Andress, 2002, p. 4).

within and beyond the classroom setting, i.e., through guest speakers, museum visits, relevantmusical, theatrical, or sporting events; and using the language for personal enjoyment andenrichment). The Communities Standards, as Cutshall notes in her recent article “Integrating‘Communities’ in Your Language Instruction,” can be addressed through activities organizedbeyond the classroom setting as well as within it (33).

Despite the obvious pedagogical benefits to language learning and cultural familiarizationoutside the classroom, however, extracurricular activities in foreign language programs areoften treated as an afterthought, as an appendix to the curriculum, or as simply an opportunityfor students to boost their grades with a few extra-credit points. What is more, even if a series ofextracurricular events is in place, faculty often face the challenge of ensuring that students actu-ally attend the activities that are offered, especially given the many other social, artistic, athletic,and, of course, academic commitments that compete for a student’s time.

This article describes a creative, practical, and successful strategy for developing an extra-curricular program that motivates students to engage in language- and culture-oriented activi-ties, that bolsters participation, and that integrates the activities into existing course offerings.The program outlined in this paper has been an effective means of extending the study of Ger-man language and culture into a “non-academic” setting, and has helped to create a sense ofcommunity and commitment among students in a small German department, but—perhapsjust as important—it has attracted students to the department. We would therefore argue that awell thought out series of intellectual and cultural activities outside the classroom (but under theumbrella of the German program) can play an important role in keeping our students engagedand our departments thriving. In the sections below we first explain how the Kulturevent seriesfunctionsbeforediscussing why, in ourview, theculturalpassport concepthasbeenso effective.

The lynchpin in the Kulturevent program is the passport, which we developed following adepartment self study and outside review in 2008, and in response to a series of discussionsconducted by the dean of our college concerniMartina Lindsethng the intellectual climate onour campus. Among the suggestions offered by the reviewers’ report was the idea that weshould enhance the role of our native language teaching assistant in terms of pedagogicalsupport in and outside the classroom. The report also recommended that the department offerlanguage- and culture-oriented activities for students of German that were more exciting, effec-tive, and well integrated, in order to increase student attendance at those events and to raise theprofile of the German program at the university. While the German Department was undergo-ing its self-assessment, the university administration and faculty were participating in a largerseries of discussions focussing on the intellectual climate on campus and strategies for attractingmore students to College majors and minors (as increasing numbers of undergraduates declaretheir majors in the School of Commerce). These conversations eventually resulted in the “TheMarkers of Progress,” a posted document that articulated a series of important goals for theCollege faculty, which included (1) fostering overall a “more vibrant intellectual climate inwhich academic and cultural life is the focus of the [university] experience, rather than beingovershadowed by the social life of our students”; (2) “participat[ing] more actively in endeavorsoutside the classroom, such as student clubs and organizations;” (3) “conduct[ing] a survey ofhow faculty and students value the intellectual and cultural activities on campus;” and (4)“develop[ing] a ‘Passport to the Arts’ program or other ideas that will create more publicity forcultural activities and draw bigger audiences.”2 As new junior faculty members, it was clear tous that in addition to addressing the issue of decreasing enrollments in German, we were beingencouraged to consider the College’s broader commitment to creating a more intellectual envi-ronment overall. Thus, we took to heart the recommendations in both the report by the outside

PRAGER/KRAMER: STRATEGIES FOR CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT 43

2 “Markers of Progress” http://www.wlu.edu/Document/Markers-of-Progress.

reviewers and the document issued by the dean of the college. As Davidheiser and Wolf pointout, junior faculty in German often find themselves in the position of balancing two equally for-midable tasks: earning tenure and bolstering their department’s chances of survival:

When a new faculty member arrives in a German or Foreign Language Department, the expectation is that thisperson will reinvigorate the program or even save it from demise. Even if administrators do not actually requireit, the few faculty staffing a small German program evolve into jacks of all trades by virtue of the lack of suffi-cient colleagues to do everything needed for such a program to thrive. (2009, p. 66)

Thus, as is the case for faculty in many other small German departments, the objectives were tohelp find ways to rejuvenate the program and increase its visibility, enhance the role of theteaching assistant, grow our extracurricular activities program, and contribute to raising thequality of the university’s intellectual climate. Any change or development should of coursekeep in mind the stated goals of our departmental mission: to encourage students to makecomparisons to and connections with other cultures, to gain a deeper understanding and ap-preciation of their own culture and values, and to use their skills in the German Departmentcommunity and beyond. The Kulturpass was designed to address all of these issues.

As with other departments on our campus, one major concern among the German Depart-ment faculty had been the low levels of student attendance at departmental and club activitiesand gatherings, as well as at university-run cultural events in general. There has certainly beenno dearth of film screenings, lectures, plays, outings, international dinners, concerts, and read-ings being offered campus-wide and by our department, but unfortunately more events do notalways guarantee increased student attendance—regardless of who is organizing the activity.Undergraduate students are busy, and at our particular institution, eighty-five percent of themare affiliated with a fraternity or sorority and thus tend to prioritize Greek activities over volun-tary attendanceat extracurricular eventsassociated with their academic life. This is understand-able given that, increasingly, students feel that the bonds and networks they establish in theirfraternities and sororities will ultimately prove more valuable to their future economic securitythan the breadth and diversity of their liberal arts education.

It became clear to us as we re-conceptualized our extracurricular program that we shouldkeep in mind the following: (1) that students have shrinking windows of available time; (2) thatGerman language- and culture-orientedevents shouldbe regardedas integral to thecurriculumas a whole and not simply a disparate collection of events; and (3) that the students should per-ceive these activities as facilitating the cultural and linguistic fluency they need not only to suc-ceed in German, but implicitly, to enhance their competitiveness as they pursue fellowship, in-ternship, graduate school, and employment opportunities. We began by adding a series ofquestions to our course evaluations, asking students to assess the department’s current extra-curricular offerings. The students’ answers revealed three important facts: first, once theyactuallyparticipate in extracurricular activities, they tend to enjoy themselves; second, themoreoften they come the more they feel they learn (in terms of language skills, cultural awareness,etc.) and the more likely they are to think critically and contextually about material we cover inclass. And finally the students recognize that, simply put, the more they come, the more theycome. The challenge, then, was how to get them there in the first place—without dangling theextra-credit carrot.

In order to find a solution, we organized a small task group (which included two facultymembers) an adjunct instructor for beginning-level German, and the current teaching assistant,to conduct two surveys: the first, of current and former students, and the second, of previousTAs, to assess both groups’ perception of the TA position, and the “usefulness”or importance ofthe extracurricular activities offered by the department. Based on their responses and meetings

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with faculty and TAs, we wrote a detailed report outlining not only proposed changes to the TAposition but—more importantly for this article—an innovative, low-cost solution to the prob-lem of low attendance at German Club and German program events.

The Kulturpass

Having discussed the origins and rationale for developing a systematic program of culturalactivities beyond the classroom, we will now provide a description of the Kulturevent series andthe Kulturpass itself. The first step was to create a physical, symbolic object that would actuallyremain in the students’ possession and function both to remind them of the cultural events pro-gram and to forge a sense of belonging. What we designed therefore was a smaller version ofthe maroon European Union passport, but with two new titles: Deutschklub in gold letteringabove, and below, the word Kulturpass. In between we positioned a German Club crest, de-signed by faculty and students. In the first year, the teaching assistant and work-study studentsmade the sixty passports by hand, cutting paper to fit the front of small booklets and gluing thecovers on, then securing the spines with black duct tape. Since then, however, we have found iteasier and cheaper to have the University’s print shop produce the passports. The departmentcovers the cost of a student’s first passport. However, if a student loses his or her passport, he orshe pays the two dollars it costs us to replace it. As of fall 2010, all incoming German students re-ceive their Kulturpass in the first weeks of class.

Thenext stepwas to organize the Kulturevents. At thebeginningof each fall and winter term,faculty, the TA, and German Club officers meet to brainstorm about possible event ideas, andby the second week of classes, we post a calendar of the department-sanctioned events on thedepartmental website and on a poster pinned to the office bulletin board. The list includes abroad range of activities: from film screenings and lectures to student-run workshops on studyabroad to soccer matches. Films, including Sisi, Das Leben der Anderen, Das Wunder vonBern, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, and Das Boot, that are screened as part of a course (forexample, on “Film Adaptations” or “German Media and Contemporary Society”) are alsoopen to other students as a Kulturevent in order to foster interest in film culture and in the courseitself. The result is that 20–30 students will watch a film together—some for the class, others for astamp in their Kulturpass. It should be noted, however, that to qualify as a Kulturevent, a filmscreening should be accompanied by a brief introduction outlining the film’s importance orproviding some cultural or historical context. The introduction can also be in the form of a briefpresentation or discussion led by student(s) working on a project related to the film. Relevantpublic lectures in other departments (art history, history, theater, music come to mind) or by vis-iting scholars or guest speakers help to enrich and diversify the selection of activities from whichstudents can choose, and can be designated Kulturevents if they serve to enhance students’understanding of the language, culture, or history of German-speaking countries. Students ofGerman who might not otherwise have thought to attend lectures offered by the Law Schoolmade the connection to their own studies when they attended a talk on “Parliament’s Army:Lessons from Germany on Law and War” or a keynote lecture by a former German brigadiergeneral on “The Military in Contemporary Germany.” Both were held in the Law School butlisted on the Kulturevent calendar. Although the lectures were given in English, they were rele-vant even to our beginning-level students, who had posed questions in class about the recentlyabolished German Wehrdienst and Zivildienst. Of course the background information is partic-ularly helpful to students studying the culture of the postwar era in their advanced German andliterature classes. What is more, as they sit in on a lecture on German immigration by a guestscholar in the history department, students become more aware of the ways in which interdisci-

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plinary approaches to German culture enrich their own studies, and their presence at related,non-departmental events advocates for German outside our classes and our program.

We encourage TAs and students, especially those who have spent time abroad, to suggestcelebrations, dinners, or current, popular, or interesting movies they may have seen whilestudying abroad. Not surprisingly, events involving food have proven to be especially popular.Cooking nights offer students a sample of regional dishes, such as raclette, fondue, and Nürn-berger Bratwürstle, and the annual holiday Back-Marathon provides them with a chance toshare favoriteGerman family recipesor simply to learnhowtomakeVanillekipferl onanAdvents-sonntag, using a recipe that was phoned in by a TA’s mother in Bavaria. We have found that thebi-monthly Kaffeeklatsch at the local coffeeshop and lunchtime Stammtisch with the TA or a fac-ulty member works best when we organize them by language levels and limit the number of par-ticipants to ten. In fact, making that small change, i.e., limiting the number of slots for most of theculinary and small discussion events greatly increases the demand, not just for that event but alsofor those that follow,andgeneratesabuzzamong thestudentswhen thesign-upsheet isposted.

Once the program is underway, students come up with their own creative ideas for culturalactivities and take responsibility for organizing them. They have, for example, arranged excur-sions to local German restaurants and to the nearby Frontier Cultural Museum to explore thelifestyle and architecture of early German settlers in the region. After a unit on Wander-Kultur inher intermediate German class, one student organized a German-speaking Sunday Wan-derung in the hills outside town. In the last few years, a favorite activity has been the annualchampionship soccer match between students (and faculty!) in the German and RomanceLanguage Departments. The idea developed after we began teaching a unit in intermediateGerman on the 2006 Fußballweltmeisterschaft as a watershed moment in changing Germanattitudes toward public demonstrations of national pride. Students studying the game of Fuß-ball and the culture that surrounds it decided to hold their own annual Weltmeisterschaft at theend of the spring term and over 40 German students and their friends attended each event. Thematches, even after three German Department losses, have created a sense of camaraderieacross language levels and class years within German, as well as a healthy and humorous rival-ry with ourFrench, Italian, Spanish, and SouthAmericancolleaguesandpeersacross thehall.

In total, we now offer a choice of 15 to 18 events each term. Although the calendar is flexible,students have an overview at the start of the term and can choose times and types of activitiesthat suit their interests as well as their busy schedules. These Kulturevents are also calledStempelevents because students receive a stamp in their passport at each activity they attend.Participation in three events per term is mandatory for all courses in the department, a require-ment that should be noted on all course syllabi. If a student is taking more than one Germancourse during a given term, the maximum required is still only three. A faculty member or TA,we have found, must also be present at the event to introduce the topic or cultural activity, to an-swer questions the students may have, stamp the passports, and keep attendance records.

Attendance, however, has not been a problem since we began asking work-study studentsto send out email reminders prior to events. In a department that does not have a work-studyprogram, this task could be taken over by a departmental administrator or graduate student. Inaddition, at the suggestion of one of our native language assistants, the German TA keeps trackof student attendance on an Excel spreadsheet, which is posted on a bulletin board outside thedepartment. The sheet, updated weekly, charts all the students enrolled in German classes aswell as the events scheduled. Their attendance is marked beneath an event and date with an“X.” Students—and their professors and the TA—can easily check their status on their way toclass, as well as how many more opportunities they have on the calendar to accumulate theirthree Xs. Since there is always a small cadre of students who prefer to wait until the last weeks tocollect their stamps, the green bulletin board has come to be known as the “Wall of Shame,” a

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title invented by a vigilant TA with a sense of humor. Finally, for every missed event, studentslose a point off their final participation percentage in their class. Although it is not a significantfactor in their overall grade, even this small adjustment has contributed to a dramatic increase inparticipation and attendance.

The Results, the Benefits, and the “The Stickyness Factor”

Almost all our students participate in at least three functions, they protect their passports,demand stamps at events, compare number of stamps, comment on the events in their courseevaluations, and attend functions in strong numbers (15–30 for larger events). In the secondyear of the Kulturevent program, the department was glad to see students begin to make theirown recommendations. In doing so, they help create a more intellectually vibrant universityenvironment and within the department, they establish friendships and a sense of communityacross classes and with the TA. Last year, for example, students singing in a GermanLiederabend asked that their concert be considered a Kulturevent and that their classmates benotified. Similarly, ever since Generalprobe, the annual German play, has been added to thelist, our German-language thespians are guaranteed support from their classmates. Mostimportantly, as they organize, attend, and suggest their own Stempelevents, our students delvedeeper into German culture and expand their independent exploration of cultural texts andpractices. Needless to say, all this enhances their performance in the classroom. What is more,the Kulturevent program not only offers the German Club officers an opportunity to build lead-ership experience (and earn the title they put on their résumé), but it puts the German TAs in thecenter of student activity, which is where they, and not necessarily the faculty, should be. Finally,the Kulturevents expand the outreach of our department. German students do bring theirfriends to movies, dinners, and competitions, and thereby introduce the program to membersof the student body who might not otherwise come into contact with German culture or with ourcourses in German Studies.

The simple changes we introduced to our program of extracurricular events have indeedhad a positive—and dramatic—impact on our department, and we find Malcolm Gladwell’sconcept of the “Stickiness Factor” to be helpful in explaining the success of the students’ littlemaroon booklet. In his book The Tipping Point (2000) Gladwell describes the phenomenon ofthe sudden spread of messages or ideas through the social network in this way: “The StickinessFactor says that there are … relatively simple changes in presentation and structuring of infor-mation that can make a big difference in how much of an impact [a message or idea] makes”(p. 25). Gladwell’s exploration of how social epidemics are generated and spread, that is, howsocial trends, ideas, and phenomena function like viruses and become contagious and popular,focuses on “the tipping point,” a term borrowed from epidemiology, where it is used to desig-nate the moment at which a virus reaches critical mass. According to Gladwell’s analysis ofcultural behavior, three factors play into the tipping point, when a fashion trend, and idea, ornew product go viral: “one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects;and three, that change happens not gradually, but at one dramatic moment” (p. 9). It would beperhaps overly optimistic to hope for a mass stampede of students into German cultural activi-ties on campus, or a tidal wave of new degree applications for the German major, but “thetipping point” phenomenon is certainly relevant to a small German department in the case ofthe Kulturevents. In many small German departments, those with one to three faculty, somecombination of the main building blocks for creating successful programs is already in place: arelatively broad range of interconnected courses in language, literature, and culture studies, astudy-abroad program, a state-of-the-art language lab, some sort of language requirement, a

PRAGER/KRAMER: STRATEGIES FOR CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT 47

student-led German Club, a native teaching assistant, perhaps even an annual film festival or atheatrical production, and some seed money from the student government or the departmentalslush fund. Even with all the critical components in place in our program, however, studentswere often reluctant to extend their engagement with German language and culture past thelimits of the classroom walls and course requirements. Something was still missing. Gladwell’ssecond principle, the “fairly radical notion” (p. 10) that small changes can have a significantimpact, reminds us that having a successful, thriving program may only require minor modifica-tions to create a sense of excitement and interest that can re-energize a department and attractnew students. For any small change to have an impact, however, it must be an idea that is easilyarticulated, clearly represented, and memorable, or what Gladwell calls “sticky”: “We tend tospend a lot of time thinking about how to make messages more contagious—how to reach asmany people as possible.… But the hard part of communication is often figuring out how tomake sure a message doesn’t go in one ear and out the other. Stickiness means that a messagemakes an impact” (pp. 24–25).

Our department’s experience of a dramatic increase in student participation in culturalevents outside the classroom after the recent implementation of the Kulturpass supportsGladwell’s hypothesis. The passport, a initiatory gift to the students upon entering the program,functions as an overarching concept and as a symbol that ties the events together, and lendsmeaning, authority, and weight to the idea of taking part in German-based community activi-ties. The Kulturpass and the stamps that confirm a student’s cultural exploration add a sense ofritual to the extracurricular program, and replicate a cultural product that is itself freighted withmultiple meanings, many of which fall in line with the objectives of foreign language teachingand learning. Clearly, a passport represents the idea of groupor collective identity, a senseof be-longing to the community of German students and faculty while at the same time symbolizingdeparture and arrival, travel, exploration, and an encounter with foreign cultures and ideas.This seemingly inconsequential little booklet is thus imbued with an aura of both security andadventure. There is, of course, also the tongue-in-cheek wink at the cliché of the over-zealous,stamp-wielding German bureaucrat, which is probably most appreciated by the German TAs,who enjoycoming upwith all sorts of variations on thewords Regel, Stempel, and Ausweis.

In sum, the Kultur- or Stempelevents concept has contributed to our program objectives onmany levels. We have used it to formalize the extracurricular program, to integrate the languageand cultural activities into the curriculum, and to motivate students to take on a more active rolein planningactivities. Most importantly, the Kulturpass is that “sticky” item that fosters a senseofidentification with the German Departmetn and that gives students an added reason to partici-pate, to create connections between the coursework and the realia outside, and to establish tiesbetween themselves and students in other sections, in other language levels, and in other years,as well as with members of the larger university community.

Works Cited

ACTFL. (2006). Standards for foreignl language learning in the 21st century (3rd. ed.) Yonkers, NY: National Standards inForeign Language Education Project.

Andress, R., James, C. & Jurasek, B. (2002) Maintaining the momentum from high school to college: Report and recom-mendations. Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 35 (1), 1–14.

Cutshall, S. (2012). More than a decade of standards: integrating “communities” in your language instruction. The Lan-guage Educator, 7 (6), 32–37.

Davidheiser, J., & Wolf, G. (2009) Fanning the flames: best practices for ensuring the survival of small German programs.Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 42 (1), 60–67.

Gladwell, M. (2002). The tipping point: how small things make a big difference. New York: Bay Back Books.Kramsch, C., & Gerhards, S. (2012). Im gespräch: an interview with Clarie Kramsch on the “multilingual subject.” Die

Unterrichtspraxis/ Teaching German, 45 (1), 74–82.Krashen, S. 1989. Language acquisition and language education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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