Lola ReRuns in the Classroom: Dramatic Improvisations on the Film Run Lola Run for Intermediate German Instruction

Abstract

This paper presents an approach of how student-created dramatic reenactments and improvisational renditions of the German film Run Lola Run (Lola rennt, Tom Tykwer 1998) can serve as important vehicles to foster transcultural and communicative, student-centered competence in intermediate German language instruction, based on successful implementation in two intermediate college German courses. By performing improvised scenes, inspired by key scenes of the film, students learn to closely interpret and engage with the film’s themes and motifs beyond the meta-textual level, while sharpening their mastery of situational vocabulary, cultural nuance, and linguistic structures of the German language. This film in particular, with its focus on repetition and variation, offers especially suitable material for facilitating students’ awareness of language as a tool with which to access imaginative and interpretative potentials, as well as to express integral aspects of culture itself. The approach presented here also includes suggested materials, methods, and ideas to enhance understanding on the textual and performative levels and incorporate at the intermediate level of the curriculum, particularly for the Independent User level (B1 and B2)2 who has a basic grasp of the German language yet desires to develop greater linguistic flexibility and aptitude.