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This international conference/workshop brings together scholars, writers, and artists - including many from IEAS - to consider what it is we are teaching in the present, and where the intersection of creativity and criticality in teaching and scholarship could play a more active role.

This event is part-hybrid, including a keynote speech from artist/writer/publisher Alexandra Grant.

On 4 November, Goethe University Frankfurt welcomed 23 pupils from the Lycée Victor Duruy and 25 pupils from a secondary school in Herborn to Campus Westend. Prof. Dr. Stefanie Frisch (IEAS) and Prof. Dr. Roland Ißler (Rom) greeted the pupils and their accompanying teachers.

The French Studies student representatives in Faculty 10 organised a campus trail. Working in mixed Franco-German groups, the pupils explored key sites and learned about their history. The campus's historic buildings and international academic community provided a setting for conversations about the roles of France and Germany in Europe and what holds Europe together today.

For the Institute for English and American Studies, the Erasmus+ visit connects multilingual school exchange with language teacher education. The campus trail gave pupils a reason to draw on their French, German and English as they worked together. In this setting, English can serve as a lingua franca, giving pupils a shared language when they need one.

The partnership also gives prospective teachers of English at Goethe University the opportunity to undertake placements at bilingual French–English secondary schools in southern France. There, they can see how English is taught as a foreign language and how it is used as a medium of instruction in other subjects.

On 28 October 2026, the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) department hosted a workshop for primary school English teachers, organised by Stefanie Frisch and Kira Schad. Twenty-six teachers from Frankfurt and the surrounding region attended.

The workshop explored the challenges of writing in English as a foreign language and ways to motivate and support young writers. Participants were introduced to engaging writing tasks for the upcoming Christmas season and different approaches to providing feedback on young learners’ written work were discussed. 

The workshop also provided an opportunity to discuss school-university research partnerships. Later this school year, classroom investigations involving individual participants will explore questions concerning the particular challenges of providing teacher feedback on young learners’ writing.

Participants responded positively to the workshop and emphasised the importance of professional development opportunities specifically tailored to primary school English teachers.