Didactics of German is the academic discipline that examines subject-specific acquisition and teaching processes within and outside of school. As a science of subject-specific teaching and learning, it deals with the selection, legitimisation and justification of language and literature teaching objectives, the methodological structuring of teaching and learning processes, the development and evaluation of teaching and learning materials and the investigation of social and media conditions under which language and literature are taught. Subject-specific didactic knowledge therefore encompasses knowledge about subject-specific objectives, subject-specific content, subject-specific teachers and learners and subject-specific teaching and learning.

We expressly understand didactics of German as an empirical, research-based science. As such, it has several related disciplines, first and foremost German linguistics and literary studies, whose findings and methods form the core of the discipline. In addition, it uses findings and methods from related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, history and other specialised didactics, without which the conceptual development, theoretical foundation and empirical research of subject-specific teaching processes would not be possible. In this respect, German didactics is transdisciplinary.

As an applied science, German didactics is relevant to teaching practice without, however, being directly realisable in practice. With regard to this last point in particular, many students come to our courses with false expectations. We do not provide them with 'recipes', but with scientific foundations for future professional practice. For example, our courses are about describing competencies and developmental processes that are specific to the subject of German, or analysing teaching objects in terms of their requirements. These basics are important so that you can diagnose the learning status of pupils, explain their difficulties and guide and support learning processes in a targeted manner. To clarify German didactic issues, you will not only apply linguistic and literary methods, but also qualitative and quantitative empirical research methods.

We emphasise the importance of making German didactics teaching research-oriented. This means that our students should learn to develop and clarify their own research-related questions concerning their future field of work, "German teaching". Cultivating a research-based view of teaching and learning processes in German lessons is highly relevant for prospective German teachers.

At the University of Oldenburg, German didactics is represented by two teaching and research areas: language didactics and literature didactics, including media didactics. There are numerous points of reference between the two areas. Both professorships in German didactics are characterised by empirical research in language and literature didactics.