My research centres on foreign language education, with a particular focus on teachers of English, French, and German as a foreign language, across schools and universities. I investigate how cognitive factors (language aptitude, cognitive styles), biographical trajectories (language-learning biography, teaching experience), professional competence (profession-related language competences and general language proficiency), language teacher identity, subject knowledge (including AI literacy), and instructional tendencies (implicit–explicit orientations) vary across teachers, develop over time, and interact to shape professionalisation process and classroom practice.
Methodologically, I work in mixed-methods and multi-paradigm traditions spanning foreign language teaching and learning, instructed second language acquisition (ISLA), identity research, professionalisation research, (language) teacher education, and language testing and assessment. My quantitative work includes competence and performance testing (test development, rubric validation, and rater-effects analyses) and survey design (questionnaire development and psychometrics); my qualitative work includes interviews, narrative inquiry, qualitative content analysis, and thematic analysis. Across experimental, intervention and exploratory designs, I pursue research excellence anchored in social justice that aims to support sustainable and equitable foreign language education.
Current Research Projects
Habilitation project «Primary School FLE-Teachers’ Language Aptitude, Language Biography and Language Proficiency (FLE-LABP)» 2022-2027
Language Teacher Identity project «On Pre-Service L2 German Teachers’ Emerging Language Teacher Identities: A Narrative Inquiry» 2024-2027
Past Research Projects
PhD dissertation «Fostering and Assessing Pre-Service English Teachers’ Oral Teacher Language Competence through an Assessment Rubric and Peer Feedback: An LSP Approach», 2018-2022
Research in collaboration with the Center for Language Competences of Language Teachers:
«Profession-Related Language Competences of Language Teachers (PRLC)» 2018-2020
«Testing Profession-Related Language Competences (Prüfen berufsspezifischer Sprachkompetenzen)» 2018-2020
«Profession-Related Language Competence Examination» 2021-2024
PHSG-project «Sprachstanderhebung bei Studierenden der PHSG» 2018-2020