The University of Bremen (UNI BRE) is a medium-sized German university with around 20,000 students and offers a wide range of subjects: More than 100 Master’s and Bachelor’s programs as well as the state law exam. Moreover, the University has reinterpreted project studies with research-based learning, a defining feature originating from when it was founded. As part of the European university network YUFE – Young Universities for the Future of Europe – it is developing a new model for European higher education together with seven other universities.
The University has a long-established tradition in interdisciplinary cooperation and excellent research in natural sciences, engineering, the social sciences and the humanities, as well as in teacher training. From 2012-2019, the University of Bremen with its Institutional Strategy “Ambitious and Agile” was one of the eleven universities that held the title of “University of Excellence.”
The University of Bremen is also an experienced organisation in Erasmus+ projects, including Strategic partnerships in school education.
The partner of the MaMLISE project is the Section for German as a Second and Foreign Language of the University of Bremen. The main areas of research at the Section are German as a Second Language provision for newly immigrated as well as for 2nd and 3rd generation learners of German in school, training, and workplace; second language acquisition; social, affective and cognitive variables of language learning; and multilingualism.
In cooperation with partner schools and under the leadership of the predecessor in the professorship the following research and practical projects were carried out: “Writing promotion in the multilingual orientation stage”, “Text revisions in the multilingual orientation stage” and “Transfer of educational vocabulary from written to oral communication in the subjects of lower secondary education. An intervention study using the example of explaining in 8th grade”.
Moreover, under the leadership of the predecessor in the professorship, Prof. Dr. Nicole Marx, a curriculum for German language classes for newly arrived secondary students has been developed in strong cooperation with school practice.
Furthermore, the already close cooperation with the Department of Intercultural Education in the Faculty of Education is currently being intensified and expanded. The cooperation with the Department of Intercultural Education also consists of a practical project “Promotion of children and youth with migration background” for student teachers in which teaching materials for subject teaching are developed for German-learning beginners.
Team members
Prof. Dr. Andrea Daase – professor for German as a Second and Foreign language. She holds a PhD in Acquisition in German as a Second Language from Bielefeld University. Her research interests and publication focus on Multilingualism and Second Language Acquisition of young people and adult learners in school, vocational training and the workplace. Furthermore, she has years of experience in teacher training and further education (organisational planning, content conception and implementation). In addition, she is a co-applicant in the “DaZKom Transfer” project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in which the results of the two predecessor projects „DaZKom” and „DaZKom-Video” on the competence in German as a second language of (prospective) subject teachers are now being transferred into the practice of university teacher training.
Dr. Anne Gadow – Lecturer in the Section German as a Second and Foreign Language. She studied German as a Foreign Language and religious studies in Leipzig. Afterwards she was a DAAD language assistant at Boğaziçi University and Istanbul University, Turkey. She completed her doctorate at the Herder Institute of the University of Leipzig on educational language skills of children with German and other family languages (a video-based discourse analysis for describing and explaining in science lessons in grade 4). Before coming to Bremen, she worked as a research assistant at the University of Paderborn. Her teaching focuses on the promotion of German as a Second Language, educational language teaching situations, language in science lessons, language diagnostics and teacher prognoses.
Katja Baginski – coordinator of the project “Promotion of children and youth with migration background” since 2006. In this project, she organizes, monitors and advises the coaching and tuition of school students with migration background by university students of the educational sciences. She graduated as a teacher of German and Textile Work in 1987, with a specialisation in German as a Foreign Language. She has worked as a teacher in Argentina (1987/88), Germany (1991-1999) and Chile (1999-2003). She collaborated in the development of textbooks and teaching materials for German as a 2nd language. She is working on a dissertation on the subject of resource-oriented lessons for newly immigrated teenagers with refugee experiences.
Milena Nuñez Reinoso – PhD student in the section German as a Second and Foreign Language. She graduated in Educational Sciences for Mathematics and Social Sciences at Bielefeld University. Her research interests focus on the role of teachers in handling German as a Second Language in the daily school context. At the University of Bremen she teaches students about enhancing multilingualism in the classroom.
Nastassia Rozum – Research assistant in the Section German as a Second and Foreign Language. She studied German and English as foreign languages and was a lecturer in Minsk, Belarus. Now she is a PhD student at Bielefeld University. Her research interests are the tension between language and culture in the context of language teaching, cultural awareness in language teaching, language theories, language as social practice. At the University of Bremen she is currently teaching a seminar on separate language classes for newcomer students in the German educational system.
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Sarah Olthoff– Research assistant in the Section German as a Second and Foreign Language at the University of OIdenburg (Germany). She studied German as a Second and Foreign language, German Linguistics and Secondary School Education. Before she graduated in German linguistics on description of educational language and language sensitive teaching, she gathered teaching experiences in Padang (Indonesia), Greeley (USA) and at the Goethe Institute. Her teaching and research interests focus on language sensitive teaching in mainstream classes and subject-oriented language teaching in preparatory classes.