Modern German Plays: An Advanced German Textbook utilizes some of the most famous modern plays written in German as vehicles to teach German language, literature, and culture. The featured works are The Three-Penny Opera, The Devil’s General, Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Chinese Wall, Visit, A Sports Play, and Innocence. The authors of these masterpieces include not only world-renowned dramatists such as Brecht, Zuckmayer, Frisch, and Dürrenmatt but also such celebrated contemporary female playwrights such as Nobel-laureate Jelinek and Loher.
Designed to meet the instructional needs of advanced German courses, this volume combines a number of pedagogically proven foreign language teaching and learning strategies, primarily the communicative approach and the three-stage reading strategy. The organization of the featured plays by chapter provides the instructor with not only a welcome teaching and learning resource but also a convenient and flexible course management tool so that each instructor can decide how many plays to include in the syllabus and how to proceed in covering the plays.

Peter Yang received his PhD in German from the University of Utah and his MA in German from the Beijing Foreign Studies University. He won many awards and grants, including the IALLT Henderson Memorial Award and a major CWRU Grant. He is also the author of Theater ist Theater and Play Is Play.