Classroom teaching

In the German class on Wednesday morning, 15 undergraduate students discussed the short story "German Chestnuts" by Pazarkaya. The story revolved around the identity of a Türkiye boy, Ender, who was born and raised in Germany. In class, students brainstormed to explore the reasons why immigrants leave their home country and the difficulties they may encounter abroad, such as language barriers, cultural differences, and social biases. When discussing the word "foreigner", the students responded from silence to hesitation, and finally realized that in the United States, due to the existence of multiculturalism, the definition of "foreigner" became vague. Teachers guide students to refocus on the story, and the classroom atmosphere becomes lively again. The teacher recorded this discussion and plans to further explore it in the future.

2 moments to confide

Explored how the "confession moment" in the classroom can inspire research inspiration. The author captures subtle details in teaching by reflecting on unexpected situations in the classroom, such as misunderstandings, silence, unexpected reactions, grammar errors, and lesson preparation failures. Through communication with colleagues, friends, and students, the author gradually gained an understanding of complex issues such as cultural differences, political correctness, and identity recognition. These exchanges revealed Americans' views on "foreigners" and their misunderstanding of immigration status, and pointed out problems and challenges in teaching.

3. Conduct research

By analyzing the American students' summary of a story about "foreigners" in Germany, this paper probes into the influence of cultural differences on understanding. The author collected 15 abstracts and found that students' understanding not only varied in content, but also reflected their viewpoints in the organization. Some abstracts directly translate American sentences with personal issues, while others reflect students' understanding and indignation towards discrimination. The narrative structure of the abstract is diverse, some resembling police reports, some resembling personal comments, and some extracting the deeper meaning of the story. The author learned about students' different attitudes, such as confusion, sympathy, anger, and academic nature, through these abstracts. Students have different ways of expressing the plight of "foreigners", some avoid this topic, and some try to create new words to describe it. The author realizes that silence in the classroom is not only a language issue, but also a cultural issue.

4 Literature Review

Deeply explored the relationship between language and identity, social structure, and cultural cognition. The author first focuses on German immigration law and citizenship, and analyzes the different psychological representations and social meanings of the word "foreigner" in German and American English. Subsequently, the author investigates how language describes and constructs social reality, as well as the interaction between language and social structure, including discourse roles and social constructivist theory. In addition, the author also explores how the author constructs reality and self through narrative discourse in the creation, as well as the expression of evaluative content in the abstract. Finally, the author proposes a classroom activity method by analyzing the genre limitations and discourse self of student abstracts, allowing students to explore the dimensions of language experience differences by comparing abstracts. The author also reflected on his understanding of the concept of "foreigners" and how to apply these theories to teaching practice.

5 research questions

The research question focuses on how students construct foreign cultural realities through foreign languages, explores the degree to which learners' writing is influenced by cultural background discourse genres, analyzes the differences between learners and native speakers and other learners in the utilization and selection of literary resources, and how they construct their own discourse selves. Meanwhile, the study aims to reveal the implications of these findings for foreign language teaching.

6 Research Methods

Introduced the comparative research conducted by the author in different countries and cultural backgrounds. The author first conducted abstract exercises among 62 undergraduate students from three classes in the United States, and then conducted semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the abstract style and content of 24 students. Subsequently, the author collaborated with a German teacher in Nantes, France to have 21 senior students who had been studying German for two years engage in the same exercises. In addition, the author also contacted high school teachers in L ü beck, Passau, and Leipzig, Germany, to have their senior students participate in abstract exercises. The research aims to explore the differences in self construction and story roles among young people from different social classes and geographical backgrounds. The author emphasizes that this is a descriptive study aimed at improving students' language awareness and self reflection ability by analyzing categories, thereby enhancing their creative ability.

7 Research Results

By analyzing the abstracts of "German Chestnuts" submitted by French and German students, it was revealed that genre abstracts have cultural characteristics. Abstract samples show that German language learners in the United States and France tend to narrate stories and facts, while native German speakers are more focused on macro perspectives. The differences in the abstract may stem from language proficiency, but the stylistic perspective also reveals the characteristics of different cultural groups. The abstract of French students is more in line with the definition of abstract by the French Ministry of Education, while the abstract of German students focuses on reproducing the "meaningful elements" in the text. American students have diverse abstracts and do not always follow the recommendations of the Writing Guidelines. Many students express their own opinions when evaluating stories.

8 Return to Classroom

Explored how the author applies theory to classroom practice after organizing observations and analysis. The author focuses on how students understand and express the problem of "foreigners" in Germany, and how they use German to construct their discourse selves. Although students have limited language proficiency, they are able to shape cultural differences and explain their stylistic choices. Their summaries reflect the American perspective on the situation of children in Türkiye in German schools. Although they have insufficient understanding of political and legal realities, they can resonate in the humanistic level. The author believes that students construct social reality through selective expression, which is different from the reality constructed by the original text and other classmates. Teaching inspirations include: paying attention to the textual connotations of students' creative use of language, allowing students to explain their choices, strengthening their discourse self through classroom discussions, and teaching students to analyze their own texts. The research method switches between micro and macro, revealing more interesting moments than the initial observation. The author also became interested in students who did not speak up in class and realized the need to pay attention to their silence and unexpressed views. This exploration broadened the author's teaching perspective, allowing them to listen to students from different angles, pay attention to their vocabulary and cultural concepts behind them, recognize their creative choices, and help them find pride in using foreign languages.