New contexts of language teaching
Digital Deterritorialization: Where are German classes being held today?

Taken literally, deterritorialization basically means a change of area or removal from any specific location. The term was coined half a century ago by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. Social scientists have used the term to describe globalization and migration flows, among other things. At a time in which people all over the world are communicating digitally due to Covid, this phenomenon is perhaps more topical than ever – including in education and, specifically, teaching German. “Online or hybrid teaching raises the question of cultural situatedness: Does it really matter at all where a German class is held?” asks Matthias Jung, director of the Institute for International Communication (IIK) in Düsseldorf and Berlin and president of the Fachverband Deutsch als Fremd- und Zweitsprache (FaDaF, Association of Teachers of German as a Foreign or Second Language). “Can a teacher who, for example, has been living for decades on the other side of the globe still open a window on Germany for their learners? And I don’t mean a window in Windows, needless to say!” And Annegret Middeke, a cultural scientist and managing director of the FaDaF, has applied the concept of deterritorialization to the digitalization debate, asking, “How can cultural mediation work in the virtual realm?”

From concern to curiosity: teachers and learners weigh in

A FaDaF poll of German learners and experts shows what different emotions and thoughts the term “digital deterritorialization” can evoke: Some feel it’s a threat – among other things, because many people in the real world have little or no access to the digital world for technical reasons. Others see it as an opportunity for greater educational equity. Some feel the need to create a sense of closeness in the virtual realm, and some add that such virtual contact can arouse curiosity about eventually meeting up face to face. But online learning raises a great many questions: Do virtual worlds hold realms and boundaries beyond language or is the whole world our classroom today? What are the challenges learners and teachers have to grapple with to be in several places at the same time in virtual space? What rules of coexistence apply there and how are they negotiated? What digital divides do we need to overcome? What might hybrid German learning involve in future?
The not-so new normal? | © Colourbox One thing’s for sure: if location no longer makes any difference, teachers based in Germany are going to be competing on the global market with colleagues who can offer online instruction for much lower fees. Learners taking live lessons online don’t necessarily know where the teacher is. Which has some advantages. Among other things, because teachers have a wide range of options available when it comes to integrating their real-life surroundings into a live online class or situating it in some other specific place, which may even be made up. “Some teachers working from home put their whole private lives on display,” observes Matthias Jung, “giving learners a peek into their own homes, showing them how they prepare meals in the kitchen and even letting them chat with their kids.” Teachers can also work recorded contributions by “visiting experts” into their subject-specific courses, for example, or send learners off to interesting places to capture images and sounds on their smartphones and share them with the group.

The best of all worlds: the future of German teaching

In a panel discussion with experts like Albert Gouaffo, Marion Grein, Gerhard Lauer and Coretta Storz held on Zoom about a year ago as part of the German Foreign Office’s sixth Lange Nacht der Ideen (Long Night of Ideas), the FaDaF for the first time explored the future of German language teaching. The world’s German-learning community is currently in a transitional phase in which a good deal of teaching and learning is still taking place online, sometimes in blended form, though more and more learners are returning to traditional place-based face-to-face classes again. Teachers keep bringing up the question of whether online teaching should be paid less than face-to-face. “We’ve got to get away from the notion that we resort to digital teaching merely out of pandemic necessity,” insists Annegret Middeke. “For decades now, depending on the learning group and objectives, teachers have been faced with the choice between giving an introductory ‘kick-off’ presentation or encouraging group work, using a whiteboard or flipchart. In future they’ll also have to choose between conducting part of a course online, face-to-face or blended in order to achieve maximum output.”