Sprachpraxis Team
Sprachpraxis at the HHU
With a team of five, permanent Sprachpraxis professionals from across the Anglophone world, we offer a thorough and diverse language skills package and close, dependable and personal tuition that supports students throughout their degree programme.
The HHU Department of English and American Studies recognises that one important expectation of students, as well as their future potential employers, is that the degree programme helps its graduates reach an accomplished level of English language skills. To achieve this, the Department has invested an exceptional amount of resources to create a team of five permanent Sprachpraxis instructors.
These professional instructors bring their extensive experience and varied backgrounds to helping students develop their written and spoken English to the highest level over a comprehensive range of language courses. The Sprachpraxis package comprises the equivalent of six semesters’ worth of courses, usually completed over two or three years of the degree programme. The courses cover crucial academic and professional training in technical accuracy in grammar and syntax; information gathering and synthesising in summary writing; professional and academic techniques in oral presentations, as well as thorough and detailed text composition practice.
Our courses are taught by full-time staff, so we can offer relatively small class sizes in which participants can expect to receive regular, frequent and detailed feedback in written assessment, one-to-one meetings and online chats. And because our team are also permanent, we are able to offer close working-relationships with our students, getting to know their strengths and improvement goals in many different classes, and helping track and promote their progress over multiple semesters through to their graduation.
In addition, representing the wide geographical range of the Anglophone world, from the US, to Britain, Ireland and Australia, the Sprachpraxis team also frequently offers additional courses that reflect their own cultural and educational backgrounds, as well as interests. These courses, which currently include topics like mindfulness in academic contexts, music and language, British media and politics and modern Australian history, contribute fresh and original themes from native speakers to the study programme. Check out our individual profiles to learn more!
Elaine Chung
Born in Canberra, Australia, with parents from Malaysia and Singapore, I’ve always been curious and invested in questions of diaspora and identity, something which I explored during my university years. One part of that exploration was in Psychology, the science major of my Bachelor of Liberal Studies, and the other was in my arts major of History, in which I graduated with a first-class honours in 2006.
Within my degree, I also studied English alongside the second languages German and Chinese, which not only equipped me for life-changing travel and work abroad, but over the longer term also marked the beginning of my continued appreciation for second-language acquisition and teaching. I developed this career interest further in Germany whilst teaching English at various professional and educational institutions for wide-ranging purposes including business, journalism, IT, as well as training for Cambridge English Exams. During this time, I also became proficient in a variety of online learning management systems, and in my spare time consolidated previous language teaching experience by completing an additional master’s module in the Cambridge DELTA (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).
Second language teaching together with digital learning management are expertise I have been able to apply in my position at the HHU, where I have worked extensively on curricula and IT systems to support students, and where my hope is to be able to facilitate and expedite their learning with my own insights and experience. In addition to my focus on the linguistic areas of the degree programme, the heterogenous students it attracts have also recently drawn me back to my biographical experience and previous academic interests to develop courses that explore inter- or transcultural narratives in the context of Australian history and its multicultural landscape.
Conor Geiselbrechtinger
As my name suggests, my Irish-German bilingual identity is central to who I am and my teaching. I was born in Munich but moved to Dublin, Ireland at a young age. I attended St. Kilian’s, Deutsche Schule Dublin, and also spent every summer in Germany as a child. I was always very aware of a larger identity outside of my surroundings and always felt a necessity to foster it, and it was during my studies in University College Dublin giving German language tutorials that I discovered my passion for teaching. I continued teaching German after my studies in the Dublin Institute of Technology (now TU Dublin) for two years. Therefore, when a position was advertised at HHU in 1999, the switch to teaching English felt like a natural progression. And the rest is history.
Due to my linguistic background, focusing on German-English language issues has always been one of my main points of interest. I was very fortunate to have had colleagues when I started who taught me how to employ and develop this approach. Equally fascinating has been the development and change I have witnessed over the many semesters since then, how needs change and how the courses have been adapted accordingly. Certainly, the job is very different to when I started but I still simply enjoy the 90 minutes in a classroom.
Aside from that, in recent years I have become involved in Erasmus, being one of the coordinators in the Anglistik department as well as a regular attendee of G.A.S.P. (German Association of Sprachpraxis Professionals) conferences. I personally find these meetings very fruitful as it gives me insights into how colleagues at other universities approach their teaching. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Alexandra Habot Jacobowitz
I was born about 500 meters, as the crow flies, from the HHU campus - at Düsseldorf’s University Clinic. Between then and now, I’ve spent years living in other places and have family not only here but also in Slovenia and the United States.
I’m passionate about creating safe, supportive spaces for growth and learning. With degrees in English, Political Science, and Psychology, I bring an interdisciplinary perspective to my work and draw inspiration from diverse interests ranging from climate activism to theatre.
I teach writing and speaking skills at the BA and MA levels because strong communication is the foundation for co-creating sustainable and flourishing communities. Writing, in particular, invites a metacognitive awareness of how we make sense of ourselves and the world - how thought, language, and experience intertwine. Within English studies we offer students the time and frameworks for deep reflection and critical understanding.
In the BA’s Praxis & Career module, my courses focus on individual and collective transformation, for example:Stress Less – Mindful Flourishing for Students, Mindfulness & Nonviolent Communication, A Mindful Start into Term, and Happy, Healthy & Wise.
Every other semester, I also offer a class on career orientation and development and organize the English Department’s biannual Alumni Talk. I love staying in touch with students after their university years to see in what unexpected ways their lives and careers unfold.
Beyond the classroom, you can find me teaching yoga at the Hochschulsport or leading outdoor meditation sessions in the summer.
Jonathan Westwood
I grew up in Bristol and the West Country, before moving to the Southeast town of Sandwich (that’s right, funny name – I will tell you the story in class some time!), where I completed secondary school before moving north to Scotland. So, I come from many points on the British cultural compass!
At university in Glasgow, I studied a range of subjects, specialising in Philosophy and Literature, receiving my Scottish Masters in 2002. After a stint of research and archival work in continental, and particularly, German philosophy, I joined the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz teaching courses ranging from British Literature, History, Modern Politics and Media, as well as Translation, Advanced Grammar and Essay Writing. I was also able to secure grants for digital learning resources to complement my language courses, work which was also honoured by a faculty teaching award.
I was happy to bring this experience with me to the HHU, where, in collaboration with colleagues, we have built extensive digital resources for students in our language courses, and I have continued my preoccupation with language teaching, developing new curricula and materials in grammar, summary writing and essay composition. The permanent team I get to work with daily has opened up a level of collaboration and new perspectives that contribute hugely to generating fresh teaching formats and study programme ideas, keeping the classes up-to-date and dynamic.
In addition, the students from diverse study programmes that we teach in our department has allowed me to develop courses around my other interests in modern British Media and Politics. These are themes that I hope provide useful contextual background to anyone studying contemporary British literature, as well as speaking more broadly to universal trends evidenced in the increasingly frenetic, sometimes confusing, mediated forms of information in contemporary Western culture!
Dr. Carter Williams
I’m originally from San Antonio, Texas – not to fear I don’t have a thick Texan accent, but I can demonstrate one if you're interested. My path into language teaching was decidedly interdisciplinary. All my academic degrees are in music: I completed my Bachelor of Music at Rice University in music composition and received my Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo (State University of New York), where my research specialized in music composition and computer music. After completing my graduate work in 2004, I decided to take a break from university teaching and move somewhere with a vibrant music scene. This brought me to Germany, and I’ve been active in the new music scene here for over two decades. Alongside my work as a composer, I play string instruments and perform all sorts of computer music with several professional ensembles in NRW. You can also find me playing viola in the HHU University Orchestra.
Upon moving to Germany, I also began a parallel career as a language professional teaching business English for corporate clients and working as a translator. However, I didn’t stay away from university long. In 2008 I had the opportunity to start teaching English at the University of Cologne, and I jumped at the chance to work in an academic environment again. In 2020 I joined the team here at HHU.
Beyond teaching Language Skills, I also offer courses related to music: In American Studies, I teach a regular course on American Music, and I’ve collaborated with linguists in our department on courses about language and music, or how acoustics and digital signal processing can be used as tools for investigating language. Finally, I work as one of the Erasmus coordinators for the department helping our students to find the right opportunities to expand their horizons with a stay abroad.