The Ottilie-Wildermuth Visiting Chair of Teaching English as a Foreign Language

The Ottilie-Wildermuth Visiting Chair of Teaching English as a Foreign Language brings internationally renowned Literary and Cultural Studies or Linguistics scholars to the English Department at the University of Tübingen, where they will share their expertise in the areas of heterogeneity, diversity, inclusion, identity, language acquisition and language learning. The dialogues initiated by these visiting scholars will enrich the English Department and the newly established Tübingen School of Education by adding international perspectives to current approaches as to better support future teachers to deal with changing demands in the profession.

Nicholas McGuinn studied English Language and Literature at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he obtained the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. On leaving university, he worked in a range of secondary schools for 14 years before spending a year as Professional Officer for English with the newly formed National Curriculum Council. Over the past 28 years he has worked first at the University of Hull and latterly at the University of York. At both institutions, his main role was to run the secondary English teacher training courses. At York, Nicholas also helped to establish a Bachelor degree course in English and Education. He has been an external examiner for undergraduate, Masters and teacher-training courses in seven British universities. In 2009, he received a Vice Chancellor’s award for teaching and in 2014 was named as one of the Faces at Fifty, in celebration of the University of York’s 50th anniversary.  He has worked with teachers of English around the world, including Japan, Pakistan and the Russian Federation. Nicholas is currently a member of two research groups: one based at York and the other at the Western University of Applied Science in Bergen, Norway. His current research interests include the teaching of citizenship, drama and literature. His most recent books are: The English Teacher’s Drama Handbook (2014) and Take Off into English Teaching (2017), both published by Routledge.

https://www.york.ac.uk/education/research/cresj/news/2019/cresj-uni-of-tubingen/

Dr Amanda Naylor is a Senior Lecturer in English and Education at the University of York, where she is the Programme Leader for the BA English in Education.  Amanda has taken up the Ottilie-Wiildermuth-Chair in the Teaching of English Language and Literature at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, from April to September 2019.   Her main research interests are the teaching of literature and poetry, teacher training and digital pedagogy. Amanda has experience of teaching and management in Secondary, Further and Higher Education settings. Amanda has been an Advanced Skills Teacher in English, Head of English in two comprehensive schools, a lecturer in FE and Subject Lead for the University of Hull PGCE English programme.

Amanda is involved in research projects on mobile and digital learning, teaching poetry post-16 and into exploring the potential of literary texts to enable international, intercultural dialogue about citizenship.  Her most recent publications are ‘Shakespeare, Turgenev (and Kalashnikov) in Siberia’ (2018) In Students, Places and Identities in English and the Arts and ‘Deep learning; Enriching teacher training through mobile technology and international collaboration in the  International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning.  She is editing a forthcoming book to be published by Bloomsbury later in the year, Transforming Teacher Education with Mobile Technologies, with Professor Kevin Burden of Hull University.

https://www.york.ac.uk/education/research/cresj/news/2019/cresj-uni-of-tubingen/

Elizabeth (Betsy) Wheeler is an Associate Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. Her areas of expertise cover disability studies, young adult and children’s literature, comic studies, post-1945 U.S. literature and popular culture, and community-based education. Dr. Wheeler is currently working on a book entitled HandiLand: The Crippest Place on Earth (forthcoming, 2018), where she explores the new public profile of young people with a wide variety of disabilities since the worldwide rights laws of the past 25 years. Among her recent or up-coming publications are Uncontained: Urban Fiction in Postwar America (2001), “Runoff: Afroaquanauts in Landscapes of Sacrifice” (forthcoming, 2018), “Moving Together Side by Side: Human-Animal Comparisons in Picture Books” (2017); “No Monsters in This Fairy Tale: Wonder and the New Children’s Literature” (2013), and “Don't Climb Every Mountain” (2013).

Wildermuth Lecture: https://www.dai-tuebingen.de/events/wildermuth-lecture-prof-elizabeth-a-wheeler-when-inclusion-works-cautionary-tales-from

Lecture: Superheroes with disabilities:https://www.dai-tuebingen.de/events/superheroes-with-disabilities-what-they-say-about-american-culture.html

Dr. Amos Paran is a Senior Lecturer at the University College of London’s Institute of Education, where he is Programme Leader of the MA TESOL. Dr. Paran started his EFL career as a secondary school teacher before coming to the UK to do his MA and PhD in Applied Linguistics. His main research interests are reading in a foreign language, literature in language teaching, and distance education. Literate in English, Hebrew, and German himself (with a bit of Spanish and French), he is probably best known for his research and writing on literature in foreign language learning. Among the recent books he has written, edited and co-edited are Literature —Into the Classroom with Pauline Robinson (2016), Testing the Untestable in Language Education (Multilingual Matters, 2010) with Lies Sercu, and Literature in Language Teaching and Learning (2006, TESOL).

Dr.Paran in interview with Amanda Crain:

https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/125987

Jahresbericht der Universität Tübingen