Research that makes a difference!
Sabine Schmölzer-Eibinger specialises in language teaching and language education in the context of multilingualism. Her work encompasses a wide range of projects aimed at both developing and promoting language skills. At the Centre for Teaching German as a Second Language & Language Education, which she heads, the focus is on teamwork.
Out of the ivory tower
Over the years, Sabine Schmölzer-Eibinger and her colleagues have earned the trust of schools. This forms the foundation upon which the Centre’s research is built. Under Ms Schmölzer-Eibinger’s leadership, this has resulted in the creation of teaching materials that are used not only in Austria but worldwide. This is achieved primarily through active collaboration with schools and the involvement of teachers and pupils. Great importance is placed on the needs of everyday school life; a factor that ensures the materials are widely accepted. In all these processes, the researcher promotes open communication, constructive criticism and mutual support within the team – values that are reflected in the quality of the implementation.
Argumentation skills and fake news
Many of the researcher’s projects aim to equip young people with the skills to engage in discussion and actively participate in social discourse, so that they can find their way in our world and stand up for their opinions. One such project focuses on developing argumentation skills, in which young people discussed socially relevant issues relating to climate change, such as fast fashion. As part of this project, her team developed a didactic model designed to strengthen oral and written argumentation skills. The teaching materials created on this basis were distributed via international educational platforms such as the Goethe-Institut and have already been used more than 721,000 times by language teachers (based on download figures). The project received two prestigious awards: the European Language Label and the Erasmus Award.
Another project focused on developing a new teaching approach to the topic of fake news. Here, Ms Schmölzer-Eibinger’s team collaborated with international partners from the Czech Republic, Croatia and Ukraine. Together, they also developed materials that were tested with over 1,000 pupils. The aim was to promote critical thinking and the competent handling of misinformation in texts (https://fachdidaktikzentrum-daz.uni-graz.at/de/unsere-forschung/).
In a current FWF project, a longitudinal intervention study is investigating how pupils can acquire the fundamentals of scientific thinking and writing in the age of generative AI. To this end, they are examining questions relevant to everyday life from a scientific perspective, such as “How harmful is vaping, actually?”. Teaching materials have been developed for this purpose, which have been tested and evaluated in 18 classes and will soon be made available for download on the Centre for Subject Didactics’ website.
Textual competence & multilingualism
Another focus of Ms Schmölzer-Eibinger’s work is the targeted use of multilingualism in the classroom. Her team is developing approaches that enable pupils to express their own views on controversial topics in multiple languages. In collaboration with schools, guidelines for dealing with linguistic diversity are to be devised, which can serve as a guide for everyone in the school.
Sabine Schmölzer-Eibinger and her team demonstrate how important language and multilingualism are in everyday school life – whether in argumentation, academic writing or dealing with fake news. In this way, her work ensures that research has a direct impact on the classroom and the lives of pupils.
Sabine Schmölzer-Eibinger has been Professor of German as a Second Language and Language Didactics at the University of Graz since 2014. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Havana, Humboldt University in Berlin and the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). Since 2019, she has been the Director of the Centre for Subject Didactics in German as a Second Language & Language Education and of the Habilitation Forum for Subject Didactics & Classroom Research, as well as the spokesperson for the Scientific Advisory Board of FUTURE EDUCATION.