| A Quarter Century of Creating Language Textbooks & Software: Introduction | last modified: |
Prof. Fuller's invitation: "Die Wende?!" 20 years later?! Not my field. I can do German SF, Age of Goethe (rusty), "SpeakEasy", Humboldt Project, science in German literature, music in German literature, language pedagogy, technology for language teaching, assessment: yes, of course. But die Wende?! If anything: career retrospective (with a little prospective) about creating textbooks and software.
Wait! 2010 - 25 = 1985: I was working on a first-year German book.
It was published in late 1989 (officially: 1989). The next year they (re)unified Germany without even asking me. So we've got our connection to the Wende! Or rather, two connections:
1) That textbook had a LOT of DDR content in it (and some of it too positive)
2) We can talk about textbooks and software with such terms as "market forces" and "modes of production".
Soooo… A walk down Memory Lane, with an occasional look over the Wall. I'll tell you about my modest projects, and then we'll look at the Bigger Picture. Wende und kein Ende!
Our first Goethezitat: "Wir sehn die kleine, dann die große Welt."