Singing your way to better Deutsch

The synth-pop band ok.danke.tschüss (which translates to "ok.thanks.bye") will soon be helping young foreign language learners master German the fun way. 

Having won the "Deine Band" (Your Band) music competition organized by the Goethe-Institut and Deutsche Welle, they've now been commissioned to write 10 songs especially for young learners of German and to produce the accompanying music videos. 

"Music provides a playful and creative approach to a language," says Kristina Diewald-Orth, project manager of DW Akademie's educational programs. "That's why I'm very happy that we're able to work together with ok.danke.tschüss on our new German learning project 'Deine Band.' They not only make cool synth-pop, but also guarantee great lyrics with mind, heart and lots of humor."

The aim is to give young people easier access to the language and culture using catchy melodies and especially understandable lyrics. While the Goethe-Institut and DW will provide the language teaching support, Nicholas Müller, lead vocalist of German band Jupiter Jones, will be giving musical input to the project.

Multimedia learning

Ok.danke.tschüss will tour the world performing the songs at different Goethe-Institut locations and schools abroad. "I'm really looking forward to the collaboration — and especially to our German learners being able to experience the band live," says Diewald-Orth. 

The band describes their music as "unicorn rock," which is succinctly explained on their webpage: "They point with a friendly smile and raised middle finger at everything that goes wrong in the world. The German lyrics are peppered with a huge portion of wordplay while dealing in depth with serious topics."

German learners will be able to get up close and personal with the band during workshops and explore the German language together with them. The project will kick off in August 2022 with a concert in Vienna as part of the International Conference of Teachers of German.

The project is designed to be in a multimedia format: Besides live events, all songs and music videos as well as the corresponding learning and teaching materials will be available free of charge on the project website, and the videos will also be published on YouTube.

The band is thus following in the footsteps of the hip-hoppers from EINSHOCH6, who taught language skills to German learners from 2013 to 2018. "Deine Band" is a project of the Goethe-Institut and Deutsche Welle, supported by the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg, the PopCamp of the German Music Council, and funded by the Federal Foreign Office.

This article was translated from German.