Working with texts in the language classroom is covered by a specific term (Textarbeit) in German. In this contribution I describe Textarbeit as one of the components of professional didactic competence of language teachers. After characterizing the current use of the term, I identify three dimensions of Textarbeit in foreign language teaching. I then analyze these dimensions focusing on the knowledge and skills teachers need to dispose of when they work with texts in the classroom. In the last section of this paper I discuss results of this analysis in the light of current constructs of professional didactic competence in the area of foreign language teaching.