Curriculum Vitae

I studied Englisch and Spanisch at the Universities of Bochum and Münster including a 6 month-teaching internship at various language schools in Madrid.

My academically most formative years were those spent at the University of Giessen as a member of the Graduiertenkolleg „Didaktik des Fremdverstehens“ where I wrote my PhD on Subjektive Theorien. Was Schüler und Schülerinnen über Fremdsprachenlernen denken (1995). To the present day I find the concept of subjective theories fascinating and am always keen to learn about new research approaches to study and explore them.

Following my PhD I worked as a Lehrbeauftragte at Humboldt University Berlin for a while. But my main professional track has been with an educational publisher (Cornelsen) in Berlin. Coursebook and digital media development has been my daily business for many years, along with project management and leadership responsibilities. Designing language learning and teaching materials is a challenging, but also rewarding task where didactics, pedagagogy, practical teaching experience, technology and administration come together.

Much as I enjoyed working with numerous editiorial teams I am happy to find myself on the academic side of things again and to be part of the ELE team at Potsdam.

My current position is part of the large-scale project lernen:digital, funded by the BMBF and the EU. It aims at developing teacher training materials that foster understanding and criticial awareness of teaching and learning in the digital age. At the same time the training modules will be designed to transfer scientific evidence into practical classroom settings.