Framing Foreign Language Education in the United States: The Case of German

Kramsch, Claire; Howell, Tes; Warner, Chantelle; Wellmon, Chad

doi:10.1080/15427580701389615

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…First, because students will most likely only take lower-division courses in the L2 there is a strong imperative to facilitate the most sophisticated sort of learning possible. This is in line with many recent arguments in favor of bringing more cultural "content" into earlier parts of the curriculum, blurring or erasing the boundaries of the "two-tiered" curriculum common to U.S. universities, and for moving away from a strongly skills-based curriculum toward one more in line with other fields in the humanities (Kramsch, Howell, Warner, & Wellmon, 2007;Maxim, 2000Maxim, , 2006MLA, 2007;Urlaub, 2012). The second reason has to do with pedagogy.…”

Section: Two Stories At the Nexus Of Multiple Historiessupporting

confidence: 77%

The Study of Literary Texts at the Nexus of Multiple Histories in the Intermediate College-Level German Classroom

Levine

2012

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This article addresses the teaching of complex representations of history through the study of literary texts in the college-level intermediate German class, employing the categories and tenets of Scollon and Scollon's (2004) nexus analysis (see also Scollon, 2001). Nexus analysis is a model for understanding the meeting point of social actions and multiple discourses, each with its own historical body, interaction order, and discourses in place. These discourses and social actions can include the narrated action of the text, the author's writing of the text, the reception of the text, and of course, the student's reading and study of the text. Important for pedagogical design, nexus analysis includes consideration of the analyst's-in this case the L2 student's-own discourses and social actions. The curricular proposals based on two literary works by German-Jewish authors within a conventional intermediate-level German language course provide the framework for curriculum and teaching that allows learners at this level to engage with multiple, intersecting and overlapping historical, literary, and cultural issues and questions. It further involves consideration of multiple levels of analysis and multiple timescales in order to raise learners' critical historical consciousness.

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Section: Two Stories At the Nexus Of Multiple Historiessupporting

confidence: 77%

The Study of Literary Texts at the Nexus of Multiple Histories in the Intermediate College-Level German Classroom

Levine

2012

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“…The idea that meaning-making might provide a central shared concern for scholars from diverse disciplines working in foreign languages, which Swaffar espouses here, has found much traction among U.S.-based applied linguists working in foreign language teaching and learning over the past two decades (e.g. Hiram & Maxim, 2004;Kramsch, Howell, Warner, & Wellmon, 2007;Maxim et al, 2013;Swaffar et al, 1991;van Lier, 2004;Warner, 2011). In part prompted by the 2007 Modern Language Report, a growing body of applied linguists within FLLC departments have approached this as not only an intellectual but also a curricular problem, by trying to reimagine the desired learning outcomes of collegiate foreign language programs in terms of literacy and design awareness (Kern, 2000;Paesani et al, 2016), textual thinking (Maxim, 2006), symbolic competence (Kramsch, 2011), semiotic agility (Warner & Gramling, 2013, 2014 and literary thinking (Richardson, 2017).…”

Section: Transdisciplinarity As a Discourse Within Us Foreign Langumentioning

confidence: 96%

Transdisciplinarity across two-tiers

Warner

2018

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In the ten years since the Modern Language Association published their report, "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" (2007) dissatisfaction with the "two-tiered configuration" of US foreign language departments has become increasingly vocal. While the target of the criticism is often the curriculum, it has often been noted that programmatic bifurcations mirror institutional hierarchies, e.g. status differences between specialists in literary and cultural studies and experts in applied linguistics and language pedagogy (e.g. Maxim et al., 2013; Allen & Maxim, 2012). This chapter looks at the two-tiered structure of collegiate modern language departments from the perspectives of the transdisciplinary shape-shifters who maneuver within them -scholars working between applied linguistics and literary studies. These individuals must negotiate the methodologies and the institutional positions available to them -in many instances, the latter is what has prompted them to work between fields in the first place. The particular context of US foreign language and literature departments serves as a case study of the lived experiences of doing transdisciplinary work in contexts that are characterized by disciplinary hierarchies and the chapter ends with a call for applied linguistics to consider not only the epistemic, but also the institutional and affective labor needed to sustain transdisciplinary work.

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“…Most university faculty in foreign language departments would take issue both with the insinuation that what we do in our classrooms can be reduced to the learning of grammar and that it does not involve critical thinking; however, it is worth considering to what degree we ourselves may be complicit in advancing reductionist views of foreign language study. There is a tendency even within our own departments to bifurcate our educational endeavors into language and literature, lower-division and upper-division, practical and intellectual (Byrnes, 2002;Carter, 2010;Kramsch, Howell, Wellmon & Warner, 2007;Maxim, 2009;MLA Report, 2007;Seidl, 1998;Walther, 2007Walther, & 2009. v The metaphors governing our language classes are L2 Journal Vol.…”

Section: Myth 1: Language Is a Tool Or Skillmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bernhardt, 1997). Others have cautioned against the commodification of language study (Holquist, 2006;Kramsch et al, 2007;Kramsch, 2006Kramsch, & 2007 on the basis that it encourages reductionist views of language and culture.…”

Section: Myth 1: Language Is a Tool Or Skillmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking the role of language study in internationalizing higher education

Warner¹

2011

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This article critically examines current discourses of internationalizing higher education both inside and outside the humanities and considers whether some contemporary practices and positions taken on by departments of languages, literatures and cultures might actually undermine public perspectives on language study by encouraging conceptually reductive views of language. Three common myths about language study that commonly surface in discussions of internationalization are then identified and analyzed, with the intention of exposing the discursive traps that scholars of languages and literatures often set for themselves and finding new ways of explaining our potential role in institutional efforts to internationalize curricula. _______________

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Framing Foreign Language Education in the United States: The Case of German

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

The Study of Literary Texts at the Nexus of Multiple Histories in the Intermediate College-Level German Classroom

The Study of Literary Texts at the Nexus of Multiple Histories in the Intermediate College-Level German Classroom

Transdisciplinarity across two-tiers

Rethinking the role of language study in internationalizing higher education

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