LEAR Lab ^©

The LEARLab focuses on interdisciplinary language acquisition research and the transfer of relevant findings to language education theories and language teaching. The latest findings in brain research on language are to be made immediately available for institutional language learning in daycare centers, kindergartens, schools, universities, vocational training, and companies.

Monolingualism, bilingualism, multilingualism, and plurilingualism are the lab's main fields of research. The interdisciplinary nature of the lab is reflected in the integration of the latest empirical, psycholinguistic, cognitive and developmental psychological, sociological, and neuroscientific research approaches and methods, which ensures the search for language acquisition and language teaching findings in a holistic context.

The LEARLab works collaboratively, cooperatively, and participatively: KUEI partners from all related sciences, international partners (lab networks), students and researchers (BA, MA, PhD & postdocs), as well as guest lecturers are invited to participate in the lab's research projects or develop their own there. Through collaboration with the LEARLab, cooperation partners learn about the latest findings in language-related brain research and have the opportunity to offer innovative and future-oriented language training.

2025 research focus: Foreign Language Anxiety

The Professorship focuses on a current, yet still little researched area of foreign language learning from an educational psychology and neuroscientific perspective – Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA).

The main focus is on one of two sub-areas of FLA, namely the “fear of expected foreign language communication situations.” The aim of the studies is to show the consequences and effects of the selected aspect of FLA on adults after their school education, which factors and predictors lead to this specific phobia, and which prevention, intervention, and therapy options are available to change such a state of anxiety.

Topics for qualification and final theses can be assigned within this research area.
 

Evidence-based research

LLE (Language Learning Ecosystem) is an evidence-based, holistic research approach developed by the professorship to transfer findings into everyday teaching practice. The research context is formed by all those involved: local, regional, international, and global research partners, teachers, parents, educational institutions, and legal entities—as well as the children, young people, and adults who are learning languages themselves.

The Professorship's search for knowledge is focused on understanding the mental and neural processes involved in language learning, which is currently undergoing revolutionary changes that will shed new light on language education in the future. The aim is to uncover the natural curiosity and human urge to learn languages in basic research. By combining the results and findings of interdisciplinary and intercultural approaches, the Professorship is at the forefront of fundamental discoveries in Germany. Eye-tracking, EEG, and fMRT/MEG imaging devices that map mental activity during language acquisition help to prove, for example, that the brain is anything but empty from the outset. By combining these state-of-the-art radiological technologies, it will be possible in the future to shape guidelines for language learning in pre-school, school, and beyond by making the influence of biology on language development understandable.