Category: Awards

Congratulations to HL2C Vice Director Cristina Flores: Habilitation (agregação)

February 25, 2022 / Patrick Rebuschat

Congratulations to HL2C Vice Director Professor Cristina Flores for successfully concluding her Portuguese Habilitation (agregação) examination earlier this week. The Habilitation is the highest university degree in European countries such as Germany and Portugal, requiring excellence in research, teaching, and academic leadership.

The public examination took place on February 21 and 22, with a panel consisting of Professor Isabel Ermida (Chair, Minho), Professor Anabela Gonçalves (Lisbon), Professor Georg Kaiser (Konstanz), Professor Jürgen Meisel (Hamburg), Professor Patrick Rebuschat (Lancaster University), and Professor Augusto Soares da Silva (Católica). The panel commended Cristina for her outstanding track-record in research, teaching and service and approved the candidate unanimously.

Standing, from left to right: Professor Anabela Gonçalves (Lisbon), Professor Cristina Flores (Minho), Professor Isabel Ermida (Minho), and Professor Augusto Soares da Silva (Católica). Participating via Zoom, on screen, from left to right: Professor Patrick Rebuschat (Lancaster University), Professor Jürgen Meisel (Hamburg), and Professor Georg Kaiser (Konstanz).

Hector Foundation pledges 19M EUR to support educational research at Tübingen

December 4, 2021 / Patrick Rebuschat

The Hector Foundation has 19M EUR of funding to support empirical educational research at the University of Tübingen.

This significant funding will go towards the strengthening of the Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, one of the HL2C founding institutions.

The Hector Institute was founded in 2014 with a generous endowment from the Hector Foundation. The grant will help to strengthen the institute’s international visibility in the long term and secure its position as one of Germany’s leading educational research institutions.

Close to 80 scientists work at the Hector Institute, where they investigate and empirically validate the quality of educational offerings and educational processes.

Professor Ulrich Trautwein, Director of the Hector Institute, said: “Education is the most important resource we can pass on to the next generation. The generous grant will enable a new generation of scientific studies that will help to understand and improve educational processes.”

For more information, please see the press release. For more information, please visit the Hector Institute website or see the video below.

Heritage language teacher receives Portuguese Medal of Merit

December 4, 2021 / Patrick Rebuschat

Last month, Isabel Geyer, a teacher of the Camoes Institute’s extensive heritage language network (rede EPE), received the Portuguese Medal of Merit in recognition for over forty years of service to the Portuguese community residing in Germany.

The Medal of Merit of the Portuguese Communities (Medalha Mérito das Comunidades Portuguesas) was awarded by the Portuguese Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities Berta Nunes during the annual language teaching workshop organized by the Camões Institute and the Portuguese Embasssy in Berlin.

Ms Geyer began teaching Portuguese as a heritage language on September 12, 1979, until she retired on November 30, 2020. Throughout this period, she served the Portuguese community in several German cities with exceptional dedication, merit and professionalism.

The Medal of Merit recognizes individuals who, regardless of their nationality, make a valuable contribution to strengthen the affective and cultural ties that bind all Portuguese citizens, living in Portugal or abroad.

For more information on learning Portuguese in Germany, please visit the following website or contact Rui Vicente de Azevedo. To read more about the event, please see the original news source on the Camões Institute website.

From left to right: Embassador Francisco Ribeiro de Menezes, Isabel Geyer, Secretary of State Berta Nunes, and Rui Vicente de Azevedo, Coordinator of Camoes Institute network in Germany.

British Council award for Lancaster team’s comics app to support language learners

December 2, 2021 / Sophie Bennett

A Lancaster University-led project team have won a highly prestigious British Council ELTons Innovation Award for work on an imaginative comics app to help dyslexic and non-dyslexic learners learn a second language.

The project was also given a Judges’ Commendation for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

The CIELL App project was led by Dr Julie-Ann Sime from Lancaster’s Department of Educational Research and also included Professor Judit Kormos, Professor of Second Language Acquisition at Lancaster and HL2C Scientific Advisory Board member, as well as colleagues from Germany, Greece and Cyprus. The project was co-funded by ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union.

This very important award in the world of English language teaching is given in recognition of their international project “Comics for Inclusive English Language Learning” (CIELL) which aims to develop the competences of second language learners by promoting the use of comic art and other visual representations. The project also aims to enhance the quality of language teaching materials used for teaching writing in a second language by supporting the needs of dyslexic learners in a socially inclusive manner.

The CIELL App offers an inclusive, gamified approach to learning how to plan an essay at intermediate and advanced levels of English language proficiency. The award recognises that the app is designed to support students, with and without dyslexia, and offers an inclusive, gamified approach to learning how to plan an essay.

Dyslexia is a specific learning difference characterized by difficulties with word decoding, spelling, handwriting, reading, memory and attention span which affects around 10% of the population.

Many congratulations to all those involved in this important project!

For additional information, please visit the the CIEL app website, the original news source (Lancaster University website), or contact Dr Julie-Ann Sime.

Science Awards: Congratulations to Ana Lúcia Santos

November 30, 2021 / Sophie Bennett

Congratulations to Professor Ana Lúcia Santos for winning the University of Lisbon – Caixa Geral de Depósitos Science Award 2020 in the Language Sciences category. Ana Lúcia is a specialist in language acquisition research and a member of HL2C Steering Committee.

The awards recognise scientific excellence across a wide range of fields and serve to promote dissemination of cutting-edge research in international academic journals.

Nominations for the 2021 edition of this prestigious award have recently been opened. Nominations will close on 15th December at 17:00 (Lisbon time). Further information about the award can be found on the University of Lisbon’s website.

Scientific Awards University of Lisbon/Caixa Geral de Depósitos | Applications open until December 15

Porto MOOC receives IELA Honorable Mention

October 29, 2021 / Sophie Bennett

We are pleased to announce that Porto University’s Introduction to Portuguese MOOC has received an Honorable Mention in the Academic Division of the 2021 International E-Learning Awards under the E-Learning category. Congratulations to all colleagues involved!

The MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) was co-produced by Porto’s Faculty of Arts and by the Educational Technologies Cluster. The MOOC is a free online course hosted by the AcademiaUP platform, and the scheme of work aims to explore first contact with Portuguese in everyday situations. The course is based on a fiction series consisting of 8 episodes, recorded by TVU Networks, involving professional actors in different areas of the city of Porto. The teaching materials were developed by a team of trainers with experience in teaching Portuguese as a Foreign Language, and the audiovisual work was carried out by the Educational Technologies Nucleus.

Below you will find a brief video introduction to the course.

The International E-Learning Association (IELA) hosts the annual competition to recognise candidates who show an outstanding ability to promote learning, professional development and job performance through the use of technology. Successful candidates in this Award demonstrated this through the application of E-learning, blended learning and mobile learning, and were evaluated based on criteria such as “soundness and effectiveness”, “usability”, and “overall significance”.

The Faculty of Arts and the Educational Technologies Cluster at the University of Porto deserve a huge “congratulations” for their achievement. For more information on the MOOC, please contact Professor Fátima Silva, mhenri@letras.up.pt.