Das is(s)t die Welt°

Einheit 29

TEACHING TIPS

About the Unit

Aktivität 90: Unsere Lieblingsrestaurants

As in all interview activities, the emphasis should be on communication in German rather than grammatical accuracy. You can remind the students of the list of different cuisines in Einheit 27 before they get started, so that everyone has an answer ready.

Aktivität 91: Fast-Food International

1) There are regional differences that your students may be able to address as well. Are there fast food chains that are specific to where you teach? Are there some that are national and some that have made it internationally? Let your students direct how much detail they are able to give here.

2) Students will find McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, und most likely also KFC. You can mention Nordsee as a German seafood fast food chain as well as Currywurst and Döner as typical German street food.

3) You can download three menus below. Goal of this activity is to show the globalization of food and also to counter the stereotype of globalization as Americanization. While McDonald's has expanded globally, it has also adjusted to local food tastes. This is represented by Raclette on the Swiss menu, Nürnberger Würstchen on the German menu etc. You can also mention here that Germans call everything a burger that is served on a bun, therefore a chicken sandwich would also be a burger in German.

Solution:

Land 1 = Schweiz

Land 2 = Deutschland

Land 3 = Österreich

Aktivität 92: Das is(s)t die Welt

1) Students won't have to list every item, which would be hard to see and identify. Get general impressions of the table and have students list a few items. Collect these items on the board and let the whole class work on this simultaneously. Or you can have a few students write the items that the others call out on the board.

2) Let students work in pairs or groups of 3 and make sure that they don't list all the items but concentrate on similarities and differences. You can also give some hints or general categories to work with, such as: fresh fruit and veggies, take-out food, cans, dry food etc.

3) This part is particularly important because it allows students to reflect differences within their own country that can then be applied to other countries. Some may feel represented by the American families, some not at all. This is an important insight into cultural heterogeneity and can be discussed as such. The students' language skills may hinder a deep conversation about this topic but encourage them to phrase it in simple ways, such as: “Ich esse andere Sachen, nicht alle Menschen essen die gleichen Sachen, alle Kulturen haben Unterschiede” etc.

4) Some of these pictures relate to cultural stereotypes that can be seen as insulting and classist in particular. Ask students what it means when a poorer country is depicted in such ways, what it means if poorer people from a country are taken to represent a whole country etc. This directly relates to their insights in the previous exercise where they acknowledged cultural differences within their environment. This should apply to others as well and therefore let students conclude that they cannot take one picture as representative of a whole country.

5) This part of the activity drives these points home by allowing students to get to the diversity within their classroom that may be based on ethnic diversity or just personal preferences. You could decide to ask students beforehand to bring a photo to class that you can use for a discussion here. The photo could depict their weekly shopping.

Link: https://world.time.com/2013/09/20/hungry-planet-what-the-world-eats/photo/ustx04-0001-xxf1rw/