“Foreign Language Education and the Concept of Emancipatory Education“ In the wake of the “PISA shock” of 2003, educators and administrators in the German school sector have been engaged in heated discussions about where the focus in foreign language tuition should lie and what competences students ought to acquire in the course of learning a foreign language at school. A resulting move toward output orientation and standardization has brought changes to curricula and classroom practices which critics bemoan as a turning away from prized educational goals of enlightenment and empowerment, of developing emancipated self concepts through the learning of a foreign language. How do we position ourselves in this debate? What are our responsibilities toward those we teach and their learning processes? In the course of the seminar we will explore our own goals as foreign language teachers, our personal teaching philosophies. Moreover, we will look at concepts that consider learning a foreign language an empowering activity and strive to render classrooms emancipatory spaces. A course syllabus as well as required primary and secondary literature will be provided in a Moodle course under www.moodle.hu-berlin.de and – if needed – in a reader at the Sprintout copy shop in Georgenstraße/Universitätsstraße. Please register for the seminar by sending an e-mail to Mrs. Stutzke: silke.stutzke@rz.hu-berlin.de. Max. number of participants: 20 |
