Current introductory books to German as a foreign language: didactic-methodological knowledge regimes in transition

Abstract

The article aims to investigate how the history and the current didactic-methodological discussion are presented in five introductory books to German as a Foreign Language (Deutsch als Fremdsprache, DaF) published between 2012 and 2018 (RÖSLER, 2012; HUNEKE & STEINIG, 2013; ROCHE, 2013; BRINITZER et al., 2016; GEHRING, 2018). We start from the assumption that the 20th century history of language teaching usually focusses on the search for the best method, while in the beginning of the 21st century there is a paradigm shift towards a post-method pedagogy (cf. KUMARAVADIVELU, 2006). In order to investigate the narration of this transitional moment by scholars in the field of DaF, we adopt concepts of the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) by Keller (2011a, 2011b), which is still relatively unknown in Brazil. SKAD investigates the processes of construction, legitimation and transformation of knowledge fields from an angle that combines the Foucaultian perspective on discourse with the sociology of knowledge presented by Berger and Luckmann (1966). The analysis of the corpus reveals the presence of divergent discursive strategies in the introductory books, both with regard to the presentation of the past and the evaluation of the recent didactic-methodological scenario, pointing to changing knowledge regimes in the current academic discussion.

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Original in German.