Education & mentoring

Teaching

University courses at MA and BA level  ·  PhD supervision  ·  Workshops across Australia, Germany, and Norway

Inductive learning approach Research-led teaching Graduate Certificate in Social & Cultural Data Analytics (2026)

Future Supervision

I would be particularly interested in supervising theses on the following topics:

Sociolinguistics / Language Variation and Change / World Englishes

  • General extenders
  • Terms-of-address and salutations
  • Discourse particles and markers
  • Vulgarity
  • Adjective amplification

Learner Language / Applied Linguistics / Corpus Phonetics / Learner Corpus Research

  • Vowel production among L1 speakers and learners of English
  • Voice-onset-times among L1 speakers and learners of English
  • Fluency and pauses in learner and L1 speech
  • Accent and intelligibility / comprehension

Text Analytics / Digital Humanities / Corpus Linguistics

  • Applied AI/LLM/word embedding applications in the language sciences
  • Comparison of different association / keyness measures

Teaching Experience

Post-Graduate Level (MA Courses)

Graduate Level (BA Courses)

  • Morphology and Syntax (UHH, UKS, Evaluation WS2015/16)
  • Language Change and Historical Sociolinguistics (UHH)
  • Quantitative Sociolinguistics and Corpus Analysis (UHH, UKS, Evaluation WS2015/16)
  • Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics (UHH)
  • Introduction to English Linguistics (UHH, FUB; Slides; Evaluations: WS2014/15, SS2015, WS2015/16, WS2017/18)
  • Fundamentals of English Linguistics (UKS, Evaluation WS2015/16)
  • Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology (UHH)
  • History and Variation of English (FUB)
  • Empirical Approaches to the Study of Language (EMA, UKS, Evaluation WS2015/16)
  • The History of English: Focus on corpus-based approaches (EMA)
  • Introduction to Phonetics & Phonology (UKS, Evaluation SS2008)

Colloquia / Tutorials

  • Methodologies in linguistics, cultural studies and literary studies: basic issues (EMA)
  • Methods in Linguistics (UHH; Evaluations: Kurs 1 WS2010/11, Kurs 2 WS2010/11, WS2017/18)
  • Introduction to English Linguistics (UKS)
  • Einführung in die Philosophie (UKS)

E-Learning

Corpus Linguistics: Focus on Academic Language is an online e-learning course created at LUL with seven sessions on how to use, analyze, and visualize corpus data, how to transcribe spoken dialogue, how to use online resources and software applications, and how to create customized corpora. The course includes videos, practical exercises, required readings, quizzes, and discussion fora.

In addition, I have worked in and am familiar with various e-learning environments (Moodle, Blackboard, Agora).

FUB = Freie Universität Berlin
EMA = Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald
LUL = Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
UHH = Universität Hamburg
UKS = Universität Kassel
UQ = The University of Queensland, Australia

Philosophy of Teaching

At the core of all activities relating to teaching lies the idea of inductive knowledge transfer. I integrate interactive tasks into classes to motivate students and try to create an environment which favours sustainable learning experiences. This approach is grounded in my background in educational psychology — the focus of my additional minor subject psychology completed at Universität Kassel.

I have taught a wide variety of subjects at both intermediate and graduate level, encompassing lectures and a broad variety of university courses in English linguistics as well as workshops on statistics and corpus linguistics. In these hands-on workshops, students and researchers of all levels — from undergraduates to full professors — learn how to retrieve, process, visualize, and statistically evaluate language and text data.

One aspect of my outlook on teaching is that I try to engage students by including practical tasks and the acquisition of applicable skills such as gaining command of computer software or basic programming skills. I often make use of corpora in class, and this approach has received very positive feedback from students as they are actively involved in ongoing research.

I encourage students to pursue their own empirical research and to adopt the design, format, style, and approach from established journals for their term papers and dissertations. I recommend empirically testing well-defined hypotheses or replicating papers. While I find it particularly rewarding whenever students investigate topics that have not been thoroughly researched before, I also encourage students to replicate existing research — particularly in intermediate courses — as I strongly believe that replication, while fundamentally important, is not esteemed as highly as it should be.

Whenever possible, I have asked external institutions to evaluate my courses to receive feedback which I use to improve my style of teaching.

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