German

German academic writing is a skill that can be learned. By engaging with selected modern literary texts in the writing lab, students practice to develop research questions, prepare outlines, draft exposés, construct arguments, and comment on academic positions. The goal of the course is to enable participants to prepare well-structured term papers, bachelor's or master's theses, dissertations, and presentations. It also address the grammatical and
stylistic peculiarities of the German academic language, including intercultural distinctions. Moreover, students investigate the promise, perils, and limitations of artificial intelligence (AI), and the extent to which AI can facilitate many areas of academic work but not replace the need for critical and innovative thinking. By the end of the course, participants are equipped to successfully stand their ground in German academic discourse. At the same time, they acquire transferable skills to write clearly structured, concise academic texts in their own language.

Language anxiety and linguistic insecurity are central topics in multilingual and transcultural contexts. In this seminar, students investigate the causes and effects of language anxiety, in language acquisition as well as in the day to day. The class looks at different forms of linguistic insecurity and language anxiety that are affected by social norms, language ideologies, and individual experiences. The goal of the seminar is to develop a critical understanding of this phenomenon and how to approach linguistic insecurity. The readiness to work with research literature in English is required. Students need to take this seminar alongside the lecture "Second Language Acquisition and Multilingualism".

This course is for absolute beginners. This course introduces students to the fundamentals of German grammar, reading, and writing while developing some basic communicative skills. This course teaches students simple structures, lexis and phrases which enables them to communicate in a limited number of common everyday situations in German-speaking countries.