More! 4 Student's Book Enriched course266 comprises of 14 units, out of which nine are important for this examination. It is also interesting to see that the coursebook was written by almost the same authors as The New You & Me.
The differences detected are thus most likely down to the time difference of more than ten years between the publication of the respective books.
The acquisition of intercultural competence is highlighted in the didactic guidelines.267 In addition, it is mentioned that demanding 'grown-up' topics are
266 Gerngross, Günter/ Puchta, Herbert/ Holzmann, Christian/ Lewis-Jones, Peter (2009). More! Student's Book 4 – Enriched Course, Helbling Languages Innsbruck.
267 Gerngross, Günter/ Puchta, Herbert/ Holzmann, Christian/ Kamauf, Ulrike (2010). More! 4 Teacher's Book – Teil A – Enriched Course, Helbling Languages Innsbruck, 4-5
discussed such as famines, racism or fair trade. Values should be transported that include tolerance for other cultures and nationalities, ecological attitudes as well as empathy for others and critical thinking.
As in The New You & Me, this textbook also starts off with the presentation of a country, Ireland. Again, a tourist perspective is taken up inhibiting intercultural learning. In unit eight 'Travelling down under' the same is true for Australia. The depiction is constricted to facts and figures and tourist images. In another unit, 'Beautiful Boston' is the theme. While tourist aspects are again central, an obvi-ous historical topic is also addressed, the Boston Tea Party. This is all very sim-ilar to the traditional understanding of Landeskunde. Real (inter-)cultural learn-ing is encouraged in unit nine, 'Body talk'. Here, body language in different cul-tures is topic of discussion. It raises cultural awareness on a cognitive and also linguistic level. Students are encouraged to reflect on body language and on people from other cultures and compare and contrast their own and other people's culture (food, family, life, school life, sports, etc.), thus opening room for intercultural learning. A little odd however is the sequence of tasks in this chapter as the body language part is followed by wedding vocabulary and a story on teenage goths.
The first political topic is introduced by a teenage journalist who sees herself as very critically minded. In an interview, she speaks about her interview with an asylum seeker and animal rights activists. In the subsequent task, students need to prepare an interview with an asylum seeker or simulate being one. This encourages pupils to step into the shoes of 'the other' thus enhancing intercul-tural learning. To create a bridge between the specific and the abstract, the term 'asylum seeker' should be discussed, the economic and political motiva-tions for fleeing shed light on and the depiction of asylum seekers in the media and in politics investigated. The recent cases of deportations of well integrated families and their children have shown that this topic sadly is part of the living environment of pupils and thus should also be addressed at school.
The topic of food is discussed in a more political manner than in The New You & Me as it not only revolves around healthy eating but also focuses on school meals (with the help of Jamie Oliver) and 'world hunger'. However, this topic is rather secluded in the unit 'Hungry'. It would fit better to unit eleven 'A
fair world'. Here, the concept of fair trade is outlined by picturing the situation of a 'normal' small coffee farmer and a fair trade coffee farmer, who is much better off. In a discussion, amongst other things, students are asked why fair trade products are more expensive than 'normal' ones and if they do or do not buy them. In the workbook, advantages of fair trade are outlined and the 'Buy Noth-ing Day' is introduced. World hunger and fair trade can also be set in relation to the world's economic system.
Other topics included in this unit are 'fair to planet earth', 'racial fairness' and 'fairness in schools'. These are all highly political topics, where students are asked to discuss in groups and write an argumentative essay. Another area where political learning is enforced is the unit 'Ready for reading' where amongst others John Boyne's novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, set in and around the concentration camp of Auschwitz, and Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses series, set in a fictional racist dystopia where black people are dominant over people with white skin, are presented. With material at the teacher's discretion, political and intercultural learning on the basis of literary texts can be encouraged. In contrast to New You & Me, the unit on jobs 'A Working Life' is completely apolitical. It presents a number of jobs such as event management in detail and teaches pupils how to do a good job interview.
Both More! and The New You & Me have their advantages and disadvant-ages when it comes to political and (inter-)cultural learning. The portraits of un-derprivileged like in You & Me are completely missing in More!. The tourist view presentation of other countries is unfortunately taken up in both textbooks, mostly inhibiting intercultural learning. The amount of space allocated to politic-al and (inter-)culturpolitic-al learning is about the same. They both try to teach criticpolitic-al thinking on different topics. Where You & Me focuses more on giving the under-privileged a voice, the focus of More! lies on more contemporary issues such as fair trade and asylum seekers. The focus on intercultural learning is clearly giv-en more room in More! However, the variation of sequgiv-ences could be giv-enhanced and certain topics more contextualised. All in all, both books open possibilities of integrating political and (inter-)cultural learning on a content based level.