Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/43200

This research note refers to the evaluation of questionnaires handed to students of several faculties at Hokkaido University in summer semester 2009. The students are learning German as a foreign language. They were asked about their knowledge of German speaking countries, their usage of media as a means of obtaining cultural knowledge about DACH (D eutschland, A ustria, CH Conf. Helvetica), and about their learning and travelling motivation. Obtaining knowledge of a country whose language one is learning may change an attitude of prejudice and refusal to an inner understanding and acceptance of a foreign culture. This can facilitate intercultural communication, which should be one of the main characteristics of foreign language classes. One result of the above mentioned questionnaires is that most students chose talking to people from DACH as their third motivation to learn German. Their second goal is to receive credit points for their final university examination by learning German. Their most important motivation, however, is their wish to travel to one of the German speaking countries. There have been few changes in Japanese students' perceptions of DACH since Grünewald evaluated questionnaires about knowledge and ideas about Germany and Germans. Categories like history, food and drink, sports, and culture remain basically the same, are, however, filled with different contents, e.g. the number one category of history five years ago was filled with details like Hitler, Nazis, Jews, whereas now (The basis with these answers might, however, not be large enough.) under history one can find Hitler, Nazis, Habsburg, and many other names and events. Generally there is now some kind of diversity of ideas and there are less stereotypes. This might be due to a higher media presence of DACH in Japanese media since 2006, when there was the soccer world championship in Germany and the Mozart Year in Japan. Due to the results of my questionnaire in summer 2009 most information about soccer, politics and culture was obtained by television, followed by the internet, and on place three, by newspapers. Radio is nearly never used for information about DACH by the students here. Nearly half of the students did not answer this part of the questionnaire. This might lead to the conclusion, that students should get better training in the use of various media. The students here chose Berlin, Munich and Vienna as their main travelling goals; there was besides this a big variety of smaller towns and landscapes. They are willing to invest around 100.000 Yen pocket money for a home stay and study program in DACH and consider 12-14 days long enough. A conclusion can be drawn from this, that future German classes should emphasize intercultural communication, and short trips to DACH should be organized to motivate more students to learn German.