Spreading the word further in Autumn 2025: ReaLiTea at two conferences and as part of an interview!

In the last two months, I had the pleasure of presenting our project to two very different audiences at conferences.

The DGFF Conference

At the end of September, I was at the Biannual Deutschen Gesellschaft für Fremdsprachenforschung (DGFF) Conference at the University of Kassel, Germany. This conference centers on research into teaching and learning languages and this year highlighted innovation in language education research and sustainability. The overall topic of our project was perfect for this conference theme as we aim for sustainable professional development going beyond language teacher education as we also target language teaching practitioners with our materials.

The feedback was quite positive. However, we need to be clear about the “everyday research” teachers seem to do in class when they correct their students mistakes and, based on these, then create follow-up tasks to specifically target previous weaknesses and the formal teacher research which is structured, integrates research findings and should be accessible for other language teachers who may find the project and its findings relatable to their own classroom.

We also need to be careful about addressing this significant difference in our project, ensuring we recognise and respect teachers’ diagnostic competence and emphasise the importance of research into language teaching and learning at the same time.

The CARN Conference 2025

Last week, I attended the Annual Collaborative Action Research Network Conference 2025 at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. The Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) brings together action researchers from various areas, such as education, health sciences, social work and community development, and promotes the support and improvement of the quality of professional practice through action research.

The presentation of our project was embedded in a session of language teacher action researchers and thereby integrated well with the other talks. The audience showed strong interest in how the materials were developed and in the involvement of practitioners throughout the process. Since our goal is to address pre- and in-service teachers, we are striving to include them in the process of adapting and revising our materials. Many of us are already piloting the materials in pre- or in-service teacher education courses and are working hard to collect constructive feedback from our target audience, so we can make the materials truly relevant to their classroom practices.

The Rudolphina interview

In addition, Julia Hüttner and I had the honour of being interviewed for the Rudolphina Research Magazine, concerning the semester question at the University of Vienna which was “What should we learn when everything is changing?”.

In the interview, we were asked about the motivation and aims of our project, how we view the relationship between teaching and research and the obstacles which have to be overcome between researchers and teachers in fruitful collaborations and interactions. We also had the opportunity to voice our opinions on the role of research in curricula and textbooks – and much more.

The article is to come out in January 2026, right before our Multiplier Event held here at the University of Vienna in February.

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