Is English a killer language that leads to the extinction of indigenous languages around the globe? Why is the Internet full of new words and abbreviations? Why do teenagers use language so differently from non-teenagers? Can language change be stopped?

We want to investigate which linguistic phenomena, topics, questions, and methods German school teachers would like to address in the English language classroom and where they need support to do this.

Recent analyses suggest that up-to-date insights especially from sociolinguistics are only transferred partially into English language teaching (z.B. Schulte & Schildhauer (2020), Jansen, Mohr & Forsberg (2022), Meer (2022)). Curricula and schoolbooks also tend to emphasise foundational structural aspects of the English language, e.g. selected grammar rules, but sideline aspects relating to linguistics as an empirical science and connections between language and society in spite of their importance in the academic field of linguistics. In close conversation with active teachers we would thus like to find sustainable ways to enable the teaching community to bring current linguistic research into the classroom.

If you are a student currently looking for a topic for your final thesis and you find this project interesting, get in touch with us! We are looking for students who would like to conduct their own research project on linguistic topics and methods in the classroom.