Team
Welcome to the website of the Chair for German as a Second Language and as an Academic Language!
Our chair is dedicated to the empirical study of language acquisition and language development in multilingual contexts. Situated at the intersection of linguistics and language teaching, our research and teaching focus on the language acquisition and development processes of children, young people and adults.
In addition to unguided language acquisition, we primarily investigate language development guided by teaching. A particular focus is on the development of academic language skills, that is, the linguistic register used across subjects in a school context as a medium for knowledge transfer and required for knowledge construction.
In doing so, we take into account various factors influencing (multilingual) language acquisition, such as typologically different first languages, as well as differences in age of acquisition and prior literacy experience. We analyse linguistic development at various linguistic levels (morphology, syntax, text), particularly in the medium of writing, employing a range of methods to investigate language production and language processing.
With regard to language education in a school context, we aim to make linguistic findings applicable to didactic models and justifications. The aim of the courses offered by our research group is to contribute to the development of knowledge and attitudes that enable a professional approach to linguistic diversity and multilingualism.
Current research areas:
- (Argumentative) writing skills of newly arrived pupils
- Knowledge and attitudes of (prospective) teachers regarding language education and linguistic diversity