Katrin Schaipp

PhD student (external)

Bio

I currently work full-time as a foreign language teacher for English and Spanish at a secondary school (Gymnasium) in Bavaria, teaching students aged 11 to 18. After completing my Abitur in July 2011, I began my teacher training studies in English and Spanish at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in October 2011. Through the Erasmus programme, I spent two semesters abroad at the University of Salamanca from September 2013 to July 2014. This experience allowed me to deepen my Spanish skills, expand my knowledge of Spanish and English language and literature, and gain valuable intercultural insights.

Before completing my degree with the First State Examination in August 2016, I also volunteered for eight weeks at a Cheshire Home in Ireland, which further enhanced my English language skills. My final thesis, which laid the foundation for my dissertation project, was entitled The use of Spanish (L3) in the English (L2) classroom: potentials and implications.

From February 2017 to February 2019, I completed my teacher training (Referendariat) at various secondary schools in Bavaria and passed the Second State Examination. Since then, I have taught at several schools across southern Germany and have been a teacher at Gymnasium Lindenberg for over two years.

Alongside teaching, I am pursuing my PhD, supervised by Prof. Dr. Tanja Angelovska. I began the project nearly five years ago at the University of Salzburg and transferred to the University of Kassel in November 2024.

 

Dissertation project: My research focuses on the competencies of EFL teachers in today’s multilingual classrooms, adopting a practice-oriented perspective informed by teachers' experiences.

 

Areas of research interest
Teaching English as a Foreign Language in a multilingual context: preparing EFL teachers for today’s multilingual classrooms – What competencies do they have, and what competencies do they need to successfully foster their students’ multilingualism?

 

Publications
Angelovska, T., & Schaipp, K. (2018). Heterogeneity in TEFL: A Focus on Teachers' Competencies for and in the Multilingual Classroom. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, 1–7.

 

Presentations and Workshops

  • Presentation of the dissertation project idea at the ÖGSD Early Career Researchers Conference (2019)
  • 11–14 June 2019: Participation in the International Summer School “Developing as a TESOL Researcher” at the University of Malta and presentation of the research project
  • 18 October 2019: Presentation titled “Assessment of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ preparedness to teach multilingual learners: Diagnostic competencies and decision-making processes in task selection” at the DSP Doctoral Seminar at the University of Salzburg
  • 29 June 2020: Public presentation of the research project at the University of Salzburg (online disposition presentation)
  • Participation in the International CCCP-2020 Symposium “Cross-Language Interplay in a Bilingual Mind”, organized by the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience (online, December 2020)