This paper suggests a rethinking of the goals of language teaching, by taking as a point of departure Adorno’s remarks on language expressivity and by tying in Saussure’s understanding of speaking subjects, Volosinov’s notion of experience, Benjamin’s relation between the expressed and the non-expressed, Benveniste’s theory of enunciation and Arendt’s action and speech. According to this, an utterance structure incorporates the lexicogrammatical choices constructed by history and the social-cultural context as a reply to previous utterances and to already established language use. As result, a pedagogics of care should not only focus on the curriculum’s goals, nor teach only those lexicogrammatical choices that are appropriate to a communicative situation; it should mainly give emphasis to the historical conditions of these choices and, especially, on the self-reflection on expressivity and the openness of an encounter with the “other”.