Aller Anfang ist schwer... Beginning language instruction based on communicative interaction calls for its participants to negotiate a substantial transition during the first few minutes of each class session. First, and most obvious, students must move from the secure language environment of their native tongue to a session conducted entirely in the target language. They encounter a new set of teaching and learning strategies: most of their other classes will depend on a highly cognitive learning posture, while language acquisition, following Krashen and Terrell, calls for the development of comprehension skills and gradual assimilation of structures. And finally, language students are asked to participate in a learning environment that stresses group interaction, where the processes of communicative exchange are as much a part of the course as the material to be covered (Brumfit: 76-82; Kramsch 1983). Kramsch is not overstating the case when she observes: By entering a foreignlanguage classroom, students leave behind the social reality created by their native tongue and start constructing a new reality, which is potentially very different from the one they just left (1987: 17). It follows that the strategies adopted by the teacher to ease this transition require special consideration. Certainly no teacher wishing to steer students into meaningful discourse will begin by announcing in English: Today, class, we want to look at. .; nor would a post-Skinnerian language instructor be likely to pick up the book and launch into the pattern drill for the day. But how should one begin? While there is, of course, no single theoretical formula for building an effective bridge into a communicative environment, a pragmatic view of the situation suggests that each day's opening activities should focus on four fundamental goals: (1) to communicate nonverbally the teacher's expectation of energetic and alert participation; (2) to establish German as the accepted mode of verbal communication [I do not say exclusive, in defense to numerous theorists, notably Krashen and Terell of the Natural Approach, who opt for allowing students-at least at first-to answer in their native language; though my experience suggests that the expectation at the very outset of simple German responses poses no problem to students and in fact enhances a positive sense of challenge]; (3) to aid students in focusing on comprehension of entirely German input; and (4) to establish contacts for later small-group work. In short, the opening activities should serve to set a distinctly interactive tone, to foster dialogue motivated by real communicative needs (Littlewood: 70), in order that acquisition and eventually more sophisticated speech production can follow.