The DAAD-funded twelve-day study trip by Greek professors Dr Anna Chita and Dr Dafni Wiedenmayer and eleven of their Master's students took them to Aschaffenburg for a few days from 9 to 20 May 2022. Other stops on the trip to Germany were the University of Bayreuth, the Leibniz Institute for the German Language (IDS) in Mannheim and the language test provider telc gGmbH in Frankfurt. The visit to Aschaffenburg gave the Athens students insights into German learning culture and the German education system - valuable information and experience for the German teachers-to-be.
In addition to a programme about the country, Aschaffenburg UAS also offered a campus tour, observation of German as a foreign language classes and English-language workshops, which the Greek students attended together with AUAS students. In addition, they visited the German lessons of a fifth grade class of the neighbouring Karl-Theodor-von-Dalberg Secondary School to familiarise themselves with everyday teaching at a secondary educational institution.
The Greek professors used the time in Aschaffenburg to exchange ideas with Prof. Dr Renate Link from the IIK of AUAS and to identify further areas in which they can cooperate. In the past, the Greek Institute for Multimedia and Language Applications and the IIK have already successfully collaborated in research, publications, lectures and workshops in the field of intercultural language mediation.
The study tour ended in Frankfurt on Friday 20 May. The next collaborative project will take place from 10 to 14 October 2022: This year's new edition of the International Language Week (ILW) initiated by Aschaffenburg UAS in 2015 International Language Week (ILW) - including Intercultural Communication. The Institutes of Multimedia and Language Applications and of German Literature and Comparative Literature of the Department of German Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrias University of Athens cooperate with the Language Centre and the IIK of AUAS for this purpose. So far, the ILWs have taken place in Aschaffenburg (Germany), Taipei (Taiwan), Billings/Montana (USA) and Seinäjoki (Finland).