About Us

The Department for International Projects in Education

The publication of the Heritage Language Teaching series is the result of a cooperative effort coordinated by the Department for International Projects in Education (IPE) at the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PH Zurich). The Department IPE is active in international cooperation in the field of education, mainly in Southeast Europe and North Africa. As part of the Zurich University of Teacher Education, the Department IPE has access to a pool of renowned educational specialists and teacher trainers in Switzerland and abroad. The challenges that students of migrant backgrounds face in acquiring the school language, but also the need to preserve their heritage languages are topics at the forefront of teacher training. This is the reason why the Department IPE made use of its extensive network of experts in the field of methodology, pedagogy and multilingualism to create the Heritage Language Teaching series. Other key areas of the Department IPE’s work are democratic education, life and future skills, transcultural learning, teaching and learning, inclusive education and job orientation.

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The editor of the Heritage Language Teaching series

The driving force behind the publication of the Heritage Language materials was Prof. Dr. Dr. Basil Schader. As a former teacher trainer in the field of German, German as a second language and intercultural education at the Zurich University of Teacher Education, author of numerous text books and teaching manuals, an anthropologist by training and holder of a second PhD in Albanian language from the University of Tirana, he is profoundly aware of the complexities of Heritage Language Teaching. His extensive knowledge is owed especially to his longstanding cooperation with Albanian Heritage Language Teachers in the Canton of Zurich. As a specialist in the field of intercultural language teaching and learning, he is connected to an extended network of specialists, who contributed to the Heritage Language Teaching materials.