When I decided to take this class I never thought I would learn so much about culture in addition to the actual language. It was interesting to look at the differences between cultures from both sides. We considered the German stereotype of Americans as superficial and over-friendly from both German and American perspectives. We did the same for the German views of friendship vs those of Americans, and Americans' view of Germans as unfriendly. This provided a look at the way two cultures differ but are still very similar. It also gave me an idea of how one culture easily accepts a false impression of another without doing much research to find out what the culture is actually like.
Our close look at culture made this course much more effective than it would have been if it were simply a language course. I have been taking French for 3 years, and although I am much more fluent in French than in German, I know almost nothing about French culture. The language is much more useful when combined with some knowledge of the nature of the society from which it comes.