Academic Centrehttps://doi.org/10.22364/lmahc.fd.24.08 | 108-116 | PDF
Aspekte des Gesundheitswesens in Lehrbüchern für Deutsch als Fremdsprache
(Topic “Illness/Disease” in Textbooks of German as a Foreign Language)
Ieva Blumberga
University of Latvia
Today, more and more people, including medical professionals, want to learn German. The desire of medical professionals and students is often linked to future career plans in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.
This chapter briefly addresses the question whether the textbooks widely used in DaF (German as a foreign language) and DaZ (German as a second language) teaching adequately deal with a topic of interest to this group of interviewees and to society as a whole: health and healthcare.
The analysis of the textbooks shows that the topic of health, which is important today, is not developed and is currently dealt with in an oblique way. Given the changes in the structure of society, in the practices of everyday life and in the priorities of values, it can be concluded that the thematic focus also needs to be updated in German textbooks, with a greater focus on the topics that are relevant to the interests of society and German language learners.
Keywords: DaF (Deutsch als Fremdsprache/ German as a Foreign Language); DaZ (Deutsch als Zweitsprache/ German as a Second Language); German Textbooks
From: Balode, Ineta; Lele-Rozentāle, Dzintra; Priede, Zanda (compilers and scientific editors). Linguistic and Medical Aspects in Health Care. Focus on Dementia. Riga: University of Latvia Press, 2024.