Explorations in English Language Learning is partly blog, partly interactive site for exploring and discovering English for Academic Purposes. Here you can pick up useful language for writing academic papers in English, develop individual techniques for expanding your vocabulary, or practice your English grammar, and much more. Enjoy exploring!
Your feedback
This blog is growing every day, but we are more than happy to receive your input about what you might like to find here, so let us know below if you think of something!
Trying out different communication tools, especially during the current situation of the digital semester, is key in order to stay connected to the English language or any other foreign language that you might be studying or just using in the course of your studies. We have conducted an interview with our colleagues and shared our experiences about struggles that students of foreign languages may encounter at the academic level. Drawing on these experiences, we have summarised some aspects of how our blog can help you to stay on track with English and how you can contribute and shape the content of our blog. If you want to know more about our work and other extracurricular activities, you can read the whole interview here.
The current racial tensions within and indeed outside of the US are demanding attention from news media and organizations all over the world. We cannot be silent in these times. With this statement we commit to educating ourselves and making our contributions to the discourse and above all to international awareness of American and English-speaking cultures around the world yet more representative of the vast diversity of those experiences and voices. See more here about how we are doing that.
Who we are
I, the blog owner, Susannah Ewing, studied Comparative Literature at Smith College before discovering my love for linguistics during my Magister at the University of Hamburg. My Master’s thesis then combined both passions in a text-linguistic analysis of German folktales. Since then I have also attained qualifications and years of experience in teaching EFL, in particular English for Academic Purposes and Academic Writing Development. For the Universitätskolleg Hamburg and in collaboration with the Faculty for Humanities, I offered courses and workshops on grammar, academic skills and learning strategies in English. My work today is within the Hamburg University’s Schreibzentrum, where I coach and offer workshops for those writing academic papers of any kind in English. While I am fascinated by technical advances and the possibilities of e-learning, I mostly love to meet with and learn from young, enthusiastic people.
In creating and maintaining this site I have had incredible support from a dynamic group of advanced language pedagogy students with their fingers on the pulse of what language learners and writers need for their university studies. We all enjoy practicing technical and pedagogical progress as we create exciting multimedia content for this growing blog.
How you can reach us
If your questions or concerns are related to the blog, or if you have a grammar emergency, feel free to use the contact form in the Help & Share section. We will get back to you as soon as possible! The Schreibzentrum is located in Schlüterstraße 51. The easiest way to reach me is via email: susannah.ewing.boelke@uni-hamburg.de. Drop me a line if you need help with your writing!
About UK Kurse: Englisch
Under the auspices of the Universitätskolleg QPL at the University of Hamburg, this project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Here students — not only of the Humanities — at the University of Hamburg could find various offerings to support them with their studies-related needs in academic English and academic writing. Such offerings included workshops and workshop series on specific needs and functions in English for Academic Purposes, subject-tailored semester courses within specific departments, and individualized, holistically conceived personal Coaching by appointment. Nowadays I am employed in the Schreibzentrum, so my work is even more concentrated on the writing aspect of English for Academic Purposes. Workshops and Write-ins offered by the Schreibzentrum are listed in the STiNE catalogue for registration, but you can also see dates in the blog calendar. See above if you are interested in discussing a specific offer directly or to make an appointment for a writing consultation.
Here you will find input about specific language issues such as grammar lessons and academic written genres or more general tips on learning styles and strategies.
In this section you can practice your language skills either to consolidate what you have learned in the Learn section, or separately, to diagnose specific difficulties.
This section provides numerous tips on events and resources in and around Hamburg the UHH, and the Internet. In addition, you will find here many posts describing some of the (also less well known) contributions to world culture coming from the English-speaking countries, from holidays in North America and their origins to historical personalities and current events, to popular films or obscure books from marginalized voices. Practice your English skills and experience the language in authentic texts and surroundings.
We encourage inquiries and feedback! Here you will find all the opportunities to ask about specific language questions or needs, contact us about the blog, or contribute your own insights.
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