DaF Students from Ukraine and new perspectives on language, culture and science
The Summer School 2026 offered students and lecturers in German Studies/German as a Foreign Language a varied programme comprising academic, cultural and interdisciplinary activities, as well as numerous opportunities for exchange and teamwork.
The German as a Foreign Language (DaF) students from the Ukrainian partner universities worked on various collaborative projects alongside students from the DaF/DaZ Master’s programme and the DSSZ part-time programme at the University of Duisburg-Essen. This enabled them both to deepen their subject-specific knowledge and to gain experience in joint project work.
Furthermore, the programme included a visit to the InZentIM Working Labs ‘Working Lab: Linguistic Discrimination in Higher Education and the Work Sphere’ on 9 July, as well as a guided tour of the Ruhr Museum on the history of the Ruhr Region.
In addition, the students attended classes given by lecturers from the DaZ/DaF Institute. These included the lecture ‘Comparative Linguistic Analyses’ by Dr. Erkan Gürsoy, as well as the lectures ‘Language through Art’ and ‘Suggestopaedia’ by Dr. Dorota Okonska.
Another key focus was concentrated on working with the resources of the University Library. The students took part in workshops organised by the University Library and carried out research for their own seminar and research assignments using the DUE University Library’s print and digital resources.
Joint projects included the cultural studies project on listening and comprehension in German as a Foreign Language/German as a Second Language (Dr. Ksenia Masalon and Dr. Julia Plainer) with students from the UDE’s Master’s programme in German as a Foreign Language/German as a Second Language and the DSSZ part-time programme, as well as the reflective cultural studies project ‘Student Voices about Germany’ (Dr. Olesia Yehorova, Sumy State University) . The projects enabled students to contribute different perspectives and to work together on subject-specific issues.
Prof. Dr. Heike Roll, together with Master’s student Jördis Beulich, led a ‘Language through Art’ workshop at the Museum Folkwang for students and teachers of the German as a foreign language major from Ukraine.
The programme was complemented by workshops on ‘Cultural Studies through Literary Texts’ (Prof. Dr. Vita Hamaniuk, Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University) and ‘Untranslatable Vocabulary: Cultural Terms in German-speaking and Ukrainian Contexts’ (Dr. Olena Biletska, Vasyl' Stus Donetsk National University).