About Us
The IPE
The publication of the Heritage Language Teaching series is the result of a cooperative effort coordinated by the department International Projects in Education (IPE) of the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PH Zurich). The IPE is active in the field of international cooperation in pedagogical development, mainly in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Asia and Africa. As part of the Zurich University of Teacher Education, the 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 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 IPE’s work are Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights, job orientation and the promotion of life skills.
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.