Intercultural learning does not occur just by setting up multinational classes. Rather, students and teachers alike need to develop a sensitivity for different perspectives that are often more subtle and more complex than simplistic national stereotyping suggests. Perspectives which are sensitive to such subtle differences grow out of cultural predispositions as well as common social contexts, e.g. developing out of common schooling experiences. It is advisable to address such common experiences directly rather than just tolerating them as something which is a unavoidable fact in modern multiethnic societies. This article illustrates how this contact principle common to foreign language learning with migrants can be expanded into the traditional realm of instruction in regular German classes, that is, in classes where the majority of students speak German as their first language. Linguistic heterogeneity is not at all common in those classes in German-speaking school systems today. However, using the pedagogical approach of learning scenarios allows instructors to include intercultural competencies as goals in their traditionally rather mono-cultural classes. The article describes the parameters of the learning scenario approach and shows what motivating role they may play in classrooms with a wide range of diverse learners. It also discusses how the teacher’s role changes in an approach that is learner-centred as well as strictly task- and content-based.