With regards to the teaching of German in Sweden this literature study looks into the Swedish curriculum and the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) to compare today’s common interpretation of the goals in language learning to the educational goals in the documents. Critics mean that the CEFR and in extension the curricula in the associated countries focus mainly on measurable practical language skills. This leads to impoverishment of the concept of language learning, which should include broad cultural aspects, encourage the students to develop their personalities and curiosity and foster a livelong desire to study. This work will try to show that blaming the CEFR for the kind of lopsided development towards practical, measurable skills in language teaching does not origin in the document or in the national curriculum. It appears to be the interpretation of the documents that oversees some essential requirements, not only for successful language teaching but also for the use of German as a tool for conversation and understanding. The real understanding of a language is, according to the research referred to in this work, connected to the understanding of culture. This literature study will show that reading older literature in language classes will favour the students´ understanding of culture. Furthermore, this work will try to point out other educational benefits besides the gain of cultural knowledge in working with literature. Students learn to argue and gain understanding of their own world by comparing to the new reality they meet in the literature. In addition, students will, with the help of the text, acquire new vocabulary and get an understanding of the structure of the language. In essence the use of literature in teaching German on one hand meets and fulfils the requirements in the curriculum and on the other hand supports the development of language skills and personals skills.

The use of literature both in and outside the classroom is of the utmost importance and must be taken note of by language teachers. The National Curriculum Statement provides the guidelines for teachers to select texts themselves. This leads to teachers only selecting the well-known texts which results in learners only getting to know very few literary works. Older texts are the ideal option for text-selection for the teaching of literature in the classroom. They are still very relevant for classroom use and are considered to be necessary and an integral part of the study of literature. But the teaching of older literature is often neglected especially in the Afrikaans classroom. The Afrikaans literary tradition is still very young in comparison to other languages and consequently does not provide the same type of older texts that for instance English can provide in the form of Shakespeare for teaching purposes. An alternative would be to make use of Middle Dutch and nineteenth century Afrikaans texts. Although these texts aren’t always accessible for learners in the twenty-first century, this problem can be solved by writing a study guide for the purpose of studying older texts. This study guide is obviously meant for learners who can cope with the difficulty of the texts and is therefore meant for home language speakers in the grade 12 classroom. A study guide such as this must be written with a heterogeneous group in mind and should reflect the guidelines as contained in the National Curriculum Statement, especially with regard to the learning activities included in the study guide. To make the study guide user friendly it is better to present the older texts parallel with a translation. This will prevent readers from constantly having to search for footnotes at the bottom of the page. A parallel translation will also make the texts much more accessible. The purpose of the study guide is not to force learners to read Middle Dutch, but rather to expose them to older literature connected to Afrikaans. The teacher can use his own discretion to decide which of the older texts he/she wants to discuss or explore. Concerning the nineteenth century Afrikaans texts it is unnecessary to translate them. It is, however, important to provide sufficient background information in the case of both the Middle Dutch and the nineteenth century Afrikaans texts. By providing cultural history as background information the reader will be enabled to make better sense of the characters and the texts themselves. Readers should then be able to better understand the context in which the texts were produced. / Dissertation (MA (Afrikaans))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Afrikaans / MA / unrestricted