Former Professors of the English Language Education Department

• Prof. Freund-Heitmüller
  Prof. Freund-Heitmüller was the first professor of English Language Education at a German university after World War II (located at the Educational Science Faculty of the Technical University of Hanover). She promoted the spread of foreign language instruction at regular schools after 1945 in a child-friendly, experience-based form with children's songs and poems from the English-speaking culture and was thus a pioneer of a media-didactic profiling of the English Language Education Department in Hanover.

• Prof. Dr. phil. Karlheinz Hellwig
  Prof. Dr. phil. Karlheinz Hellwig (1991-1998) was structurally transferred from the Faculty of Educational Science to the English Department of the Faculty of Philosophy. With this innovative structural reform, the professorship was given the flexibility to integrate across disciplines. He developed a theoretically founded and practically oriented concept of process-oriented media didactics, particularly in relation to literary, image, and music artistic texts.

• Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Rita Kupetz
  With the appointment of Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Rita Kupetz (1994-2013), a second professorship was established for the department: English Language Education: Applied Linguistics. Together with Karlheinz Hellwig, she founded the series Fremdsprachendidaktik. Inhalts- und Lernerorientiert in 1996, published by Peter Lang Verlag, which empirically explored the research processes and results of a foreign language teaching didactics. (Link www.peterlang.com/view/serial/FSD). Rita Kupetz's research focus was the development of Multiple Literacies in foreign language teaching that enable learners to participate in communicative processes of society in the sense of empowerment of the learner; the design of innovative blended learning scenarios (also for bilingual teaching/CLIL). She initiated a catalog of more than 50 videographed English lessons and developed concepts for videography in teacher education. 

• Prof. Dr. phil. Gabriele Blell
  Professor Dr. phil. habil. Gabriele Blell represented the English Language Education Department at Hanover from 2002 to 2022. With her professorship in English Language Education with a focus on literary and cultural education, she took up the concept of a process- and competence-oriented text and media pedagogy initiated by Karlheinz Hellwig, re-envisioned it over the years, and further developed it in an interdisciplinary manner, expanding it conceptually. Her research interests lay (and still lie) in literary and cultural education, media education (film education, visual, audio, and digital literacy), multilingual education (English–Spanish), intercultural and transcultural learning, virtual lesson observation, as well as diversity and inclusion. Together with Rita Kupetz and Carmen Becker, she is co-editor of the series Fremdsprachendidaktik inhalts- und lernerorientiert / Foreign Language Pedagogy – Content- and Learner-Oriented (www.peterlang.com/view/serial/FSD). She retired in 2022 with two publications, which, however, will not be her last (!):

  • Blell, G. & A. Hille (2022). Multiperspektivität in der kulturdidaktischen Lehrer*innenbildung Englisch und Deutsch als Fremdsprache. In: König, Lotta; Schädlich, Birgit & Carola Surkamp (Hrsg.) unterricht_kultur_theorie: Kulturelles Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht gemeinsam anders denken. Springer, 2022, 373-388.
  • Blell, G.; F. von Bremen: „Teaching Classroom Discourse Competence through Lesson Observation. Educational Resources Designed for EFL Teacher Training.” Katrin Thomson (ed.). Classroom Discourse Competence. Current Issues in Language Teaching and Teacher Education. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2022, 221-236.

  For the English language education scholar Gabriele Blell, teacher education in English, including the promotion of early-career researchers in the field, was and continues to be the central focus of her 20 years of professional activity.

  Professor Dr. Gabriele Blell (ret.) can still be reached via the following email addresses:
  gabriele.blell@engsem.uni-hannover.de and/or gabrieleblell@gmx.de.

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  Farewell to Prof. Dr. phil. Gabriele Blell: Good Bye LUH & Hello Retirement