Claudie Paye, « Der französischen Sprache mächtig ». Kommunikation im Spannungsfeld von Sprachen und Kulturen im Königreich Westphalen 1807-1813. Munich, Éditions Oldenbourg, 2013, 599 p. (collection: « Pariser Historische Studien », 100), 599 p. ISBN 978-3-486-71728-0.

L’histoire de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère se construit son terrain de recherche dans les régions marginales de disciplines académiques bien établies telles que la linguistique, la philologie, les sciences de l’éducation, la didactique des langues etc. L’histoire des temps modernes en Allemagne a également découvert depuis peu les contrées éloignées de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère, et c’est la coopération interdisciplinaire entre l’histoire politique, sociale, li..

Sprachmeister. Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte eines prekären Berufsstands

Vor der Institutionalisierung des fremdsprachlichen Unterrichts an öffentlichen Schulen im ausgehenden 18. und 19. Jahrhundert waren die Rechtsstellung und die materiellen Lebensumstände von Fremdsprachenlehrern oft prekär. Obwohl in den höheren gesellschaftlichen Ständen – im Adel, dem Patriziat, der Kaufmannschaft, dem Offiziersstand und der höheren Beamtenschaft – eine starke Nachfrage nach Kenntnissen lebender Fremdsprachen bestand, fehlten der Vermittlung dieser Kenntnisse zentrale Merkmale eines ehrbaren Gewerbes. Es gab keine geregelte Ausbildung, keine verbindlichen Eintrittsqualifikationen in den Berufsstand und nur vereinzelte korporative Zusammenschlüsse. Entsprechend vielfältig war die Gruppe der Lehrenden: Sie umfasste Glaubensflüchtlinge, abgedankte Soldaten, ehemalige Kleriker, verarmte Adelige, arbeitslose Mediziner und Juristen sowie Handwerker, die sich auf der Wanderschaft Sprachkenntnisse angeeignet hatten. Viele Sprachmeisterkarrieren sind durch hohe geographische Mobilität und biographische Brüche – Glaubenswechsel, Flucht und Vertreibung, berufliche Sackgassen, Delinquenz, Verschuldung, gescheiterte Ehen – geprägt; nur einer Minderheit gelang die dauerhafte Integration in den städtischen Bürgerverband. Auf der anderen Seite boten Fürstenhöfe und Universitäten Sprachmeistern neue Karrierechancen. Zumindest einigen dieser im höfischen und akademischen Milieu tätigen Fremdsprachenlehrer sowie einzelnen besonders beliebten und angesehenen Sprachmeistern in großen Städten gelang es, den prekären Lebensumständen zu entkommen, in welchen die meisten ihrer Kollegen und Kolleginnen stecken blieben. Der vorliegende Sammelband untersucht die Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte dieses heterogenen Berufsstandes in mehreren europäischen Ländern (Frankreich, Deutschland, Polen, Ungarn, Lettland) und geht auch auf die Lehrtätigkeit von Frauen und Angehörigen religiöser Minderheiten in der Frühen Neuzeit ein.Before the teaching of foreign languages was institutionalized in public schools in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the legal and material circumstances of language teachers were often precarious. Despite a strong demand for linguistic skills in the higher echelons of early modern society – among the nobility, urban patricians, merchants, officers and high-ranking public officials – the teaching of modern languages lacked central elements of an honorable trade: formal training, mandatory qualifications for entering the profession and corporate organizations. The profession was correspondingly multi-faceted: It included religious refugees, discharged soldiers, former clergymen, impoverished noblemen, jobless doctors and lawyers as well as artisans who had acquired language skills during their journeymen years in foreign countries. The careers of many language teachers were marked by high geographic mobility and personal crises such as religious conversion, flight and expulsion, abortive professional careers, delinquency, indebtedness and failed marriages. Only a minority were able to integrate themselves into the privileged group of urban citizens. On the other hand, princely courts and universities offered new career options to language teachers. At least some language teachers in courtly and academic settings as well as individuals who acquired exceptional popularity and status in larger cities managed to escape the precarious circumstances which characterized the lives of most of their colleagues. This collection of essays examines the social and cultural history of this heterogeneous profession in several European countries – France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Latvia – and also addresses the teaching activities of women and members of religious minority groups

Introduction: building the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT)

The papers presented in this issue are the result of a workshop held at the University of Nottingham in December 2012 as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council research network Towards a History of Modern Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (2012–14) intended to stimulate historical research into language teaching and learning. This, the first workshop in the programme, focused on exchanging information on the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT) across the different language traditions, for it had become clear to us that scholars working within their own language disciplines were often relatively unaware of work outside these. We hope that this special issue — with overview articles on the history of English, French, German, and Spanish as second/foreign languages — will help overcome that lack of awareness and facilitate further research collaboration. Charting the history of language teaching and learning will, in turn, make us all better informed in facing challenges and changes to policy and practice now and in the future. It is instructive in the current climate, for example, to realize that grave doubts were held about whether second foreign languages could survive alongside French in British schools in the early twentieth century (McLelland, forthcoming), or to look back at earlier attempts to establish foreign languages in primary schools (Bayley, 1989; Burstall et al., 1974; Hoy, 1977). As we write, language learning in England is undergoing yet more radical change. Language teaching for all children from the age of seven is being made compulsory in primary schools from 2014, while at Key Stage 3 (up to age 16), where a foreign language has not been compulsory since 2002, the most recent programme of study for England has virtually abandoned the recent focus on intercultural competence and now requires learners to ‘read great literature in the original language’,1 a radical change in emphasis compared to the previous half-century, which seems to reflect a very different view of what language learning is for. We seem to be little closer in 2014 than we were at the dawn of the twentieth century to answering with any certainty the questions that lie at the very foundations of language teaching: who should learn a foreign language, why learners learn, what they need to learn, and what we want to teach them — answers that we need before we can consider how we want to teach. The research programme begun under our research network is intended to help us to take ‘the long view’ on such questions