Dr. Till Woerfel holds a master’s degree in German Linguistics (German as a foreign and second language) and French Philology from the University of Potsdam. He completed a PhD in Language Theory and Applied Linguistics at the Graduate School Language & Literature Munich (University of Munich) in 2016. He has worked as research associate at the University of Potsdam (2011-2012) and at the University of Munich (2012-2017). Since September 2017, he has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Mercator Institute for Literacy and Language Education at the University of Cologne. From April 2020 to October 2021, he acted as provisional deputy head of the department. Currently, he is PI of the joint project HSU-Interregio – Interdisciplinary and interregional research, development and networking in heritage language education and the project EdToolS – Implementation of digital writing tools in content classes in secondary education (both funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and conducts reseach in the project Schule macht stark - SchuMaS as well as in the meta-project Language Education in the Immigrant Society (both funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research).
Research
Topics
Language education in the context of digital transformation
Language acquisition and language contact in the context of multilingualism and migration
Heritage language education
Evidence based praxis and evidence syntheses
Natural Language Processing (Text mining and Machine learning)
Projects
ScoRe HSU – Scoping Review on heritage language teaching (Meta-project "Language Education in the Immigrant Society", Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF)
HSU-Interregio – Interdisciplinary and interregional research, development and networking in heritage language education (joint project, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF)
EdToolS – Implementation of digital writing tools in content classes in secondary education (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF)
"Writing in the disciplines - integrating academic writing into university courses" (completed, multiplicator Project, LMU Center for Leadership and People Management 2017)
Academic writing and academic working methods (completed, e-learning project, 2016-2017, University of Munich)
The impact of language dominance and language specific patterns in bilingual children’s encoding of motion events (completed, Dissertation, 2011-2016)
Research Experience
Since 2017 Postdoc at the Mercator Institute for Literacy and Language Education (University of Cologne)
2012-2017 Research associate at the Institute for German as a Foreign Language (University of Munich)
2011-2012 Research associate at the Department of German Studies (SFB project “Modules on Language Variation for Teachers’ Education: Dialects, Multilingualism, and the Question of ‘Correct Language’”
Teaching
Introduction to academic working and writing
Introduction to empirical research in Linguistics
Project management for linguists
Academic writing
Appraisal of textbooks and teaching material
Content and language integrated learning in German
Introduction to language acquisition
Linguistic development of bilinguals
Multilingualism in early childhood
Bilingual schools and bilingual education program models
German as a second language in the German school system
The acquisition of spatial language in L1, L2 and L3
Language and thought
Sheltered instruction in L1 and science
Digital content and integrated strategies in classroom
Digital content in (multilingual) language education
