Sunset at the North Campus © Roland Baege​/​TU Dortmund
New Collaborative Project for UA Ruhr

Prepared for Multilingualism in the Classroom

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Foto: Blick ins Klassenzimmer - Kinder sitzen an Tischen, vorne sitzt die Lehrerin auf dem Pult. © AdobeStock​/​Drubig
In the future, teacher training students should be able to approach the subject of language education more flexibly and better integrate theory and practice.
The Ruhr Metropolis is multilingual – for schools, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The three universities in the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr) are responding to this with the new collaborative project “DaZFlexPro” (Flexible Professionalization in Teaching German as a Second Language). Led by the Center for Teacher Education (ZLB) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching will fund the project with around €4 million for an initial period of four years from October 2025 onward. Dr. Shinichi Kameyama from the working group “German Linguistics: German as a Foreign/Second Language” at the Department of Cultural Studies and Professor Stephan Hußmann and Stefan Schmidt from the “Dortmund Competence Center for Teacher Education and Research (DoKoLL)” are participating in the project on the part of TU Dortmund University.

The project tackles two challenges: “On the one hand, modern teacher education ought to take individual student biographies into account, as many students have other commitments alongside university or are already gaining practical experience through part-time work in schools. In short, we need to make our degree programs more flexible and think about practical work in schools when developing course content. Ideally, in times of a shortage of teachers and declining student numbers, we can also reach out to new target groups,” says Professor Tobias Schroedler, head of the Research Unit Multilingualism and Social Inclusion at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and the project’s spokesperson. “On the other hand, prospective teachers in our multilingual region are confronted with special requirements as far as language education in schools is concerned. Together with our colleagues from Bochum and Dortmund, we want to prepare our students for a resource-oriented approach to multilingualism.”

Close dovetailing of theory and practice

More precisely, the education experts participating in the project want to make teaching degrees more flexible by linking them more closely to research-based content in the field of language education and to opportunities for practical experience. In the future, the so far compulsory module “German as a Second Language (DaZ)” will be split in such a way that students can complete it flexibly over the course of their studies – with individual specializations and closer dovetailing of theory and practice. In addition, they will be able to specialize in newly immigrated school students. Structures will also be created that enable students to complete the practical phases obligatory in teacher training programs under close supervision and to specialize in teaching German as a second language to newly immigrated school students or in subject-integrated language education. In this way, the relationship between theory and practice in this field will be further developed, expanded in terms of content, and made available in flexible formats, e.g. in (partially) digitalized teaching and learning options.

Professor Tobias Schroedler is convinced: “With DaZFlexPro, we in the UA Ruhr can not only reach an enormous number of prospective teachers but together also have a wealth of expertise in language education at our disposal. We can use this pooled competence to develop innovative training formats and prepare future generations of teachers for school practice significantly better than in the past.”

Success in the “Teaching Architecture” funding program

Overall, the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching has selected 119 projects for funding within its “Teaching Architecture” program. Total funding amounts to around €480 million, of which around €1.8 million have been allocated to UDE, while Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and TU Dortmund University will each receive €1.2 million. There is an option for a two-year extension of the collaborative project and further funding of around €2 million.

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