treffpunkt sprachen

Language skills as well as intercultural skills are quickly becoming basic requirements in an increasingly mobile and multicultural society. For more than ten years now, treffpunkt sprachen has been making a significant contribution to the internationalization of the University of Graz through its professional organization of language courses for students, staff and external participants. To promote plurality and plurilingualism on several levels (language policy, language documentation, language didactics, language teaching research, language teaching and language learning), treffpunkt sprachen was converted into a centre for language, plurilingualism and didactics in 2009. Seeing as the discussion of language-related issues in teaching, language didactics, language teaching research as well as language documentation has had a long tradition, it was only natural to combine the fields of teaching and research. Linking the teaching to the research fields of plurilingualism and didactics enables us to optimize existing synergy potentials, to increase the exchange of knowledge between departments and faculties as well as to design and carry out research projects, whose results are incorporated and applied in the teaching.

The founding of the Centre for Language, Plurilingualism and Didactics has created the necessary organizational structure to bundle activities in the fields of language policy, language documentation, language teaching research as well as language didactics, to expand on the success of previous work, to combine new initiatives, and thus make a significant contribution to exploiting the potential of plurilingualism in Austria.