Background and Experience
With more than 250 professors, 2,500 employees, 20,000 students and a large third-party funding volume, Paderborn University ranks among the top-performing medium-sized universities in Germany. It offers a targeted and versatile range of degree programmes and a pronounced interdisciplinary capacity for cooperation, extending across its five faculties of Arts and Humanities, Business Administration and Economics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, Science, and Mechanical Engineering. The University’s proven research strength primarily centres on excellent broad-based scientific quality, lived interdisciplinarity and an outstanding research infrastructure.
The key areas and interdisciplinary research facilities are characterised by an outstanding research infrastructure. The region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe has developed into a major centre for young entrepreneurs, with UPB playing a driving and innovative role. To date, more than 250 successful start-ups have emerged from Paderborn University.
With around 2,000 students in pre-service teacher education, Education is main area of research and instruction at Paderborn University. The Section for German as a Second and Foreign Language and Multilingualism with over 20 faculty members offers modules and programmes in multilingualism and language acquisition in graduate and post graduate programmes. Research in the section focuses on multilingualism in education, the profession, the family and society.
Experience relevant to the project idea
The Department for German Language and Comparative Literature which is part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and has currently 19 professors, over 70 staff members as well as lecturers and guests from abroad. The Department of German and Comparative Literature is divided into seven sections, many of which cooperate with each other, but which also develop their own teaching and research activities and present themselves comprehensively on their own department pages. In this project a team representing the Section of German as a Second and Foreign Language and Multilingualism are going to take part. This section focuses on topics such as theories and practice of second/foreign language acquisition and teacher education in the area of second and foreign languages. Particular emphasis lies in the area of German as a second language in vocational education, professional development of pre- and in-service teachers, digitally supported language teaching, multilingualism in schools and families, multiliteracies, L2 writing and language learning in student exchanges. In teaching, the section offers modules in multilingualism in school contexts for all student teachers enrolled at the university as well as modules and degree programmes in second language teaching.
Team members are:
Professor Sandra Ballweg is Professor of German as a Second and Foreign Language at Paderborn University. Her research interests lie in the area of multilingualism, sociolinguistics and Applied linguistics and encompass family language policy, second/multiple language acquisition, multiliteracies, teacher education, L2 writing and other related topics. She received her PhD from the University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany, and held positions as the director of the Writing Centre at the University of Technology, Darmstadt, and as a lecturer in German as a Foreign and Second Language at Bielefeld University before joining Paderborn University. She has been a member of the MaMliSE consortium since 2020.
DrProfessor Constanze Niederhaus is Professor of German as a Second Language and Multilingualism at Paderborn University. Her research interests lie in the area of German as a second language in vocational education. She holds a PhD from the Humboldt University in Berlin and was a lecturer in German as a Second language at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
Dr. Mareike Müller earned her Ph.D. in German from the University of Waterloo, Canada where she focused on German Applied Linguistics/Second Language Acquisition. Dr. Müller held appointments as Director of the German Basic Language Program and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and as Foreign Language Coordinator and Instructor of German at Virginia Commonwealth University. At Paderborn University, she works in the area of German as a Second/Foreign Language and Multilingualism. Her research focuses mainly on language and cultural learning in study-abroad contexts, including aspects of learner identity, pronunciation, interaction-based challenges, and the effects of sojourns on learners’ academic, personal, and professional lives.
Andre Gövert is a lecturer in German as a Second Language and a PhD student at Paderborn University. His research is in the area of language learning in different subject areas. He holds an M.Ed. from Paderborn University.
Paderborn University
ID: E10208598
PIC: 999837492
Acronym: UPB
Warburger Straße 100
33098 Paderborn
Phone: +49 5251 60-2558
Germany
https://www.uni-paderborn.de/en/university/
Contact Person
Prof. Dr. Sandra Ballweg
Paderborn University
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Institute for German Language and Comparative Literature
Warburger Straße 100
33098 Paderborn
phone. +49 (0) 5251/60 2838
e-mail: sandra.ballweg@upb.de
web: https://sballweg.de