CFP: History and Memory in in Foreign Language Study

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...

Forwarded From: Claire Kramsch <ckramsch at berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 11:04 PM





Dear Colleague,


Below is a call for papers for a Special Issue of "History and Memory
in Foreign Language Study." We would appreciate if you could help
spread the word to colleagues who might be interested in submitting an
abstract. The deadline is March 15, 2011.


CALL FOR PAPERS

for a special issue of<http://goog_514419379/>
<http://escholarship.org/uc/uccllt_l2>L2 Journal



HISTORY AND MEMORY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY



Language teachers nowadays are urged to teach "culture" in their
language classes. The Modern Language Journal has recently devoted a
special Perspectives section to this issue (Byrnes 2010). But culture
is mostly dealt with synchronically, not as a speech community's
historical memories and remembrances. The many commemoration events in
the cultures we teach as well as the many literary and non-literary
texts we teach in our language classes confront us with the necessity
to refer to, explain, discuss the remembrance of historical events
that our students are not familiar with. From which perspective should
language teachers give these events significance?  Unlike historical
events encountered in a literature or history class, that are taught
in an objective manner from multiple perspectives, in communicative
language teaching, historical events live in the embodied memories of
teachers and learners who have experienced these events themselves or
learned about them in many different and sometimes incompatible ways.
Indeed foreign language teachers and students have often been schooled
in a different way of interpreting historical events (see Wertsch
2002). For example, American youngsters have been schooled in a
different view of WWII than Russian or German youngsters. How are
American teachers of German or Russian expected to teach texts that
deal with communism if many of their students dismiss communism as
mere propaganda?

Interpretations of history might be different if the teacher is a
native or a non-native speaker, has been schooled abroad or in the
U.S., is of this or that generation, of this or that political
conviction. History and memory are profoundly linked to emotions and
moral values (Kramsch 2009). Foreign language teachers whose
professional status is vulnerable to consumer displeasure and budget
cuts or whose visitor status holds them to a visitor's politeness
might be hesitant to present to American students a vision of history
that might be different from their own. These teachers might be
reluctant to teach any kind of text that would raise historical
controversy and make the students 'uncomfortable'.

 L2 Journal solicits pedagogical reports, empirical studies or think
pieces on "History and memory in foreign language study" that address
any of the following questions:

-       Which role should history play in foreign language study?

-       The MLA Report (2007) advocates teaching a foreign culture's
'cultural narrative'. What if there are multiple, conflictual
narratives in any one nation? How does the
       teacher know which one to choose? How can FL teachers mediate
various interpretations of history in the classroom?

-       How have you, as a native or non-native teacher, dealt with
the representation of historical events in textbooks or class
readings?

-       Should teachers separate the objective historical accounts of
history books and the subjective memories of those who remember the
events? Is the one more
       trustworthy than the other?

-       Can the 'negotiation of meaning' called for by communicative
language teaching be extended to include the negotiation of different
interpretations of history?

-       What theoretical resources would help language teachers deal
with the historical/ideological dimensions of the texts they have
their students read?


Please submit a 300-word abstract electronically in Word Format by
March 15, 2011 to Claire Kramsch <ckramsch at berkeley.edu> . First
drafts due September 15, 2011 for a special issue of L2 Journal (early
2012).



References

Byrnes, Heidi. 2010. Revisiting the role of culture in the foreign
language curriculum.

Modern Language Journal 94:2, 315- 336.

Kramsch, Claire. 2009. The Multilingual Subject. What foreign language
learners say

about their experience and why it matters. Oxford: Oxford UP.

MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages. 2007. Foreign Languages and Higher

Education: New Structures for a Changed  World. Profession 2007, 234-245.

Wertsch, James. 2002. Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP.




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