Claire J. Kramsch has been Professor of German and Foreign Language Acquisition at the University of Berkeley since 1989. She is also director of the Berkeley Language Centre and teaches in the School of Education. Her fields of interest are second language acquisition, applied linguistics, discourse analysis and social and cultural theory.Claire Kramsch is co-editor of Applied Linguistics, author of Language and Culture and the award-winning Context and Culture in Language Teaching published by Oxford University Press.In 1998, the President of Germany awarded Claire Kramsch the coveted Goethe Medal of the Goethe Institute for her achievements in promoting intercultural understanding between Germany and the U.S.A.