L2: Volume 07 Issue 4

Exploring the Historical Dimensions of Bildung and its Metamorphosis in the Context of Globalization

In this article, I endeavor to explore the historical dimensions of Bildung by first focusing on the German linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt and his theory of Bildung. The article then addresses the transformation of Humboldt’s neo-humanistic ideal into a government-run institutionalized Bildung aimed at managing …

The Idea of Bildung in the Current Educational Discourse: A Response to Irene Heidt

It is surprising that there is a young academic in 2015 working intensively on the German philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) and his concept of Bildung. In times where – as the author states herself – educational systems globally tend to follow neoliberal principles and where the visibility, commodification, and instrumentalization of knowledge produce …

Bildung Reloaded–Educational Challenges for a Globalized World

Worldwide, education promises a better future for aspiring generations. However, our current educational landscape has been shaped by neoliberal thinking, and is thus often oriented toward economic objectives. In Germany Bildung is a notion coined by philosophers representing a broad liberal and critical education, and the cultural and historical context of this ideal dictates how scholars and society defend educational values. However, in a so-called ‘knowledge society,’ education and language proficiency become …

Lost in Translation? Bildung between Ideological Debate and Pragmatism: A Response to Julia Campos

The term Bildung is notoriously difficult to translate. Though it is often translated as “education,” this does not entirely convey its meaning nor entirely explain its use in a myriad compounds such as Bildungssprache (language of/for education),Bildungsweg (path to education), Allgemeinbildung (general education/knowledge expectations), Ausbildung (education for professional purposes), Halbbildung (semi education). Richard Rorty (2009) attempted …

Spanish for You: Student-Centered and Languages for Specific Purposes Methods in Lower-Division Spanish

This article investigates a project that used student-centered teaching and languages for specific purposes to increase university students’ motivation to study Spanish and willingness to communicate. After reflecting on their personal goals and interests, students were required to choose a purpose or context in which they might use Spanish in their future. Then students were encouraged to seek opportunities to foster their own language and culture learning related to the unique purposes that each student had selected. Data sources included …

Using a Corpus-Informed Pedagogical Intervention to Develop Language Awareness toward Appropriate Lexicogrammatical Choices

The corpus-informed pedagogical intervention described in this article was developed for an advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) course designed for prospective International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) and implemented over the course of two class periods. Its primary goal was to offer students opportunities to gain language awareness of “smallwords” (Hasselgren, 2002b), with the broader goal of …

Sociocultural Theory and a Pragma-linguistic Pedagogical Intervention

L2 pragmatic instruction in grammar and writing is an area of second language acquisition that is underutilized by many teachers. This paper follows the process of one teacher as the instruction of the pragmatic speech act of requesting is integrated into a low-level grammar class. First, an argument is made for the importance of including explicit pragmatic instruction in an ESL classroom. Then, a recent pedagogical model based on Sociocultural Theory is utilized as a basis for …