In order to provide attractive and internationally compatible study conditions, foreign and multilingual courses are common practice. With the German-Canadian collaboration "Teaching Language Internationally", Paderborn University also offers corresponding options and supports prospective foreign language teachers in gaining intercultural experience during their studies. The German Rectors' Conference (HRK) has now selected the project as an example of good practice for the German higher education system and shared it together with handouts on improving the framework conditions for virtual mobility and foreign and multilingual study programmes.
The teaching collaboration was created as part of the "WeCANvirtuOWL" project, which was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). "Together with our colleague Prof Dr William Dunn from the University of Alberta, we have been offering a joint seminar since the summer semester 2021. The special feature is that it is taught completely synchronously via Zoom. Students from both universities attend the seminar in the virtual learning environment at the same time and create a joint final project in bi-national groups," explains Dr Katharina von Elbwart from the Paderborn University's "Didactics of English" department. The combination of German and Canadian perspectives on teaching provides the prospective foreign language teachers with new insights and encourages them to self-reflect. The inclusion in the HRK's examples of good practice recognises the exemplary nature and innovative potential of the project.
"We have now been able to consolidate the seminar and are offering it for the fourth time in the summer semester of 2024. In the future, we would also like to offer internships for the students at German and Canadian schools to give them the opportunity to apply the content of the seminar in practice. Initial discussions are currently taking place," says the second project coordinator Dagmar Keatinge, giving an outlook.
HRK project for the further development of internationalisation
With "HRK Advance", the HRK aims to promote the further development of internationalisation at universities in a targeted manner. To this end, external expertise on selected issues is commissioned, handouts are developed, supplemented by quality-assured examples of good practice and disseminated in workshop series and themed conferences. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) until the end of 2024. The Paderborn researchers have already presented their project to a specialist audience at the "Internationalisation of Teaching" conference.
This text has been translated automatically.
