Coming up: Online Seminar „Multilingual teaching and learning in Physics“ by LiDS-Speaker Ingrid Gogolin

24 August 2026

Photo: Scholzfoto

LiDS Speaker Ingrid Gogolin will host an online seminar as part of the Nordic Research Network for Educational Linguistics autumn online seminar series. We cordially invite you to join her seminar „Multilingual Teaching and Learning in Physics“ on November 4, 2026, from 3 – 4 pm (CET).

You can find the other events of the seminar series and the zoom link of the seminar here: Link

„Growing with more than one language is a reality for an increasing number of children and young people around the world—especially in cities and urban areas. In Hamburg for example about 45% of students grow up with a family language other than German. Schools are home to a wide range of language experiences: from monolingualism in a language other than the language of schooling (e.g., among children who have recently immigrated) to advanced reading and writing skills in the language of schooling as well as other languages. Linguistic diversity is therefore a fundamental prerequisite for teaching and learning in schools. This observation was the starting point for the research project “Physics Instruction in the Context of Linguistic Diversity” (PhyDiv) which we carried out @ University of Hamburg. The project focused on developing and testing instructional approaches that specifically take the linguistic composition of learning groups into account. Using physics as an example the study investigated whether—and under what conditions—students’ academic achievement in the subject can be improved when language is explicitly and systematically incorporated into instruction. The study also examined the extent to which the promotion of academic language skills in German and the additional use of multilingual resources can influence students’ subject comprehension and motivation in physics classes. In my contribution I will present the design of the project and most important results on the students’ achievement in physics and their opinions on the—unfamiliar—multilingual-sensitive physics instruction.“