Keep It Short Not Simple: Short Stories in the Advanced EFL Classroom
InBetween: Teaching Multiethnic Literature in the EFL Classroom
Intercultural Learning through Literature
Songs and Music Video Clips in the EFL Classroom
Films in the EFL Classroom
"I draw because words are too limited": Multimodal Novels in the Intermediate and Advanced EFL Classroom
Master of Education
Doing Research in the EFL Classroom (Project Seminar)
"Caring Hearts and Critical Minds": The Theory and Practice of Value-Oriented Education
Simulation ("Planspiel") crit@SCHOOL
Literary and Cultural Studies
Undergraduate Level
First-Year Courses
Introduction to Literary Studies
Second-Year Courses
What Is (the) Avant-Garde? Theories of the Avant-Garde
African-American Drama: 1959-1975
Difficulty and Twentieth-Century American Poetry
American Poetry of the 1950s and '60s
Postmodern American Short Fiction
Art as Experience: Pragmatism and Aesthetics
Thesis Supervision
If you are interested in thesis supervision, please contact me well in advance of your projected writing period, as I have limited supervision capacity and may not be able to take on another thesis in a specific semester. Please also check the department's list of potential supervisors and their thematic areas.
"Integrating Democratic Education into the EFL Classroom – A Class Project on the Topic of Migration"
"The Teaching Potential of Short Stories of Initiation in the EFL Classroom"
"Fostering Intercultural Communicative Competence with Drama Methods"
"Teaching Dystopian Fiction in the EFL Classroom"
"The Potential of Fiction of Migration for the Enhancement of Intercultural Competence in the EFL Classroom"
"Entertainment and/or Education? The Teaching Potential of Songs and Music Video Clips in the EFL Classroom"
"Let's watch the movie! – An Integrated Approach to Suzanne Collins' Dystopia The Hunger Games in the EFL Classroom"
"An Antiracist Approach to Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give: Teaching the Novel in the Advanced EFL Classroom"
"Short, Sharp, Significant: Fostering Gen Z Students' Productive Competence through Flash Fiction"
"'Hi Barbie. Hi Ken.' Fostering Gender Literacy in the EFL Classroom through the Barbie Movie"
The efforts [of the humanist, revolutionary educator] must coincide
with those of the students to engage in critical thinking and the
quest for mutual humanization. [Their] efforts must be imbued with a
profound trust in people and their creative power. To achieve this,
they must be partners of the students in their relations with them.
Paulo Freire (1968)
Philosophy of Teaching
As an instructor, I feel committed to academic teaching rooted in three guiding principles: inclusivity, collaborative action, and critical (self-)reflection.
One of my main goals is to create a learning environment where students feel welcome and recognized as individuals. With my support, I encourage them to assume responsibility for their learning and articulate their individual needs. I understand learning here primarily to mean learning with and from one another. Therefore, I aspire to foster a sense of community between my learners and myself as an educator as well as among my learners. I put special emphasis on cultivating students' sense of belonging. To these ends, I implement student-centered teaching formats and methods embedded in a framework of fearless communication and mutual appreciation and respect. These formats and methods offer opportunities for continuous student feedback that allows me to adjust and improve my own teaching. Last, but not least, critical inquiry lies at the core of my teaching philosophy. My goal is to empower students as future teachers of English by supporting them in their efforts to cultivate a habit of critical (self-)reflection. On the level of self-reflection, I routinely invite students to review how personal beliefs, experiences, and expectations influence their professionalization. What is more, I encourage students to scrutinize the institutions and practices of (English) education and their embeddedness in complex networks of power in political, social, and cultural terms.
My strategies in course design are geared towards making use of the benefits of a culture of digitality (Stalder 2019), for instance through blended learning or the combination of synchronous and asynchronous setups, in order to accommodate for different student needs. My preferred course format is therefore web-enhanced, i.e. a format that integrates web-based technology to facilitate learning.
True to the precept of lifelong learning and reflective practice, I strive for continuous refinement and improvement of my teaching practice based equally on student feedback, collaboration with colleagues, and self-reflection.
