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Wendy Hillier

Wendy Hillier profile picture
  • Lecturer, German

  • IWLP Module Convenor and Course Tutor for LA1PG1 and LA1PG3

  • IWLP Student Engagement Officer.

Office

Miller 112

Building location

Miller building

Areas of interest

  • Teaching and learning of German as a foreign language and English as a foreign language
  • Culture of German-speaking countries, cross-cultural comparison, cultural stereotypes, culture shock
  • Sociolinguistics – accents and dialects, varieties of German and English
  • Pragmatics – politeness and indirectness, language transfer in language learning
  • Learning other languages (when time permits!).

Teaching

Institution-Wide Language Programme within the Department of Languages and Cultures.

Background

I grew up in Reading and studied English and German in Nottingham, which gave me the opportunity to spend a year abroad in Tübingen, in the South of Germany, as an Erasmus student and Language Assistant in a Kindergarten.

I enjoyed my Year Abroad in Tübingen so much that directly after graduating, I went back to this picturesque university town and lived there for a further four years, mainly teaching English as a Foreign Language to German adults and university seminars in Old and Middle English. I also worked as a proof-reader of academic articles and a translator. All this gave me a fantastic insight into the differences between English and German and the ways in which languages can be taught and learnt.

In 2012, I began working at the University of Reading on the Pre-sessional English programme in ISLI, and was delighted when the opportunity arose in 2013 to combine this with teaching German on the Institution-Wide Language Programme.

I now enjoy teaching German to Beginners and Intermediate students on the IWLP, and academic and general English in ISLI to visiting students spending their Year Abroad in Reading.

Academic qualifications

  • MA Applied Linguistics (University of Nottingham)
  • BA Joint Hons English Studies and German (University of Nottingham)
  • Cambridge CELTA.

Publications

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