Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich

Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich

Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich (born February 25, 1938 in Euskirchen ; † November 5, 2015 in Nancy , Grand Est region ) was a German trainer.

She studied German and Romance languages (state exams I and II in Cologne and Heidelberg ) and completed her master's degree in German as a foreign language in Strasbourg . Since 1970 she was a language teacher and Fortbilderin for German as a foreign language at the Goethe Institute in Nancy, then in Warsaw and again in Nancy.

Her focus was on teacher training, especially in Eastern and Southeastern Europe , the Baltic States and South America , curriculum development, professional and technical languages , development of textbooks, games in class and literature for young people .

Life

Art as part of life

Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich was born in Euskirchen near Cologne . The parents came from the youth movement , the folk high school idea, knew each other from a Wuppertal drama troupe in which both played in the evenings after their work, and which they also looked after as tour guides (the theater in which the brother-in-law worked as director and game director was later called Dramaturgisches Institute in Düsseldorf ).

Her interest in intercultural relationships was shown very early when she was responsible for the partnership between Euskirchen and Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes between 1950 and 1970 as a French teacher in the secondary school (in Herten in Westphalia) and as a German-French translator .

Her experience in town twinning and her interest in museum education in the twin town of Nancy, Karlsruhe , contributed to the fact that teaching materials were developed at the Goethe-Institut Nancy in the 1980s to promote encounters (Karlsruhe construction kit, reissued for the 50th anniversary of the town) in primary, secondary and higher education and have helped to forge the bonds between the two twin cities.

To the east and further

In 1991 she came to the Goethe-Institut (language department) in Warsaw , where she discovered the special needs of a previously unrecognized group of lecturers and students, namely those who worked in the teaching staff, in ongoing discussions and exchanges of ideas with teachers - as part of her work in teacher training taught or learned German in a wide variety of faculties: It was a lesson in which the language accompanies the respective course of study, but different than in the usual studies in school, in German studies or in specialist language courses, because here it was neither mainly about "the Language ”is still about the“ technical language ”, but about the“ competence in the German language ”that the students - i.e. the future managers and decision-makers in the fields of business, media and politics - should acquire in order to be able to use the German language later after graduation to use the encounter with Western partners competently and professionally k can.

SDU and framework curricula

Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich therefore asked herself what kind of support she could offer the lecturers who were looking for ways and means to prepare their students for understanding, living together and working with people from all over Europe and developing the necessary skills in them to be able to.

In 1994, she led the university project (supported by the Goethe Institute and the Robert Bosch Foundation ) "Promotion of German language classes during studies ( SDU) at universities and colleges - curricula and textbooks": Lecturers from Poland , the Czech Republic and the Slovakia developed a framework curriculum for university teaching and teaching materials for it, which they tested in class in constant consultation with her, changed after further training, tested again, and thus adapted to the conditions, the country-specific requirements and obstacles, until 1998 the “Framework curriculum for foreign language lectures in German as a foreign language at Polish colleges and universities ”and in 2000 the“ Framework curriculum for German language classes at Czech and Slovak colleges and universities ”was created.

These framework curricula were then merged in 2006 under her leadership through further cooperation between the lecturers of the three countries in the current version, which corresponds to European requirements ( Common European Framework of Reference ), which represents a milestone in the West and East for the planning of language teaching (not only for the German lessons, as the competencies to be developed in students can be achieved through any foreign language).

Nancy time

After Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich was transferred back from the Goethe-Institut Warsaw to the Goethe-Institut Nancy in 1997 and the university project also moved there in 1999, the bridges between East and West became increasingly clear and numerous: from the collaboration she led between authors from Poland , The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland , Italy and France, the first textbook corresponding to the basics of the framework curricula was created in 2004, "Studying, working, living with German in Europe", which was followed by further communication in various areas (agriculture, This was followed by materials devoted to tourism, economics, medical professions, all of which arose from the collaboration of authors from the West and the East and are still used today in the East and West.

Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich entered these areas, some of which were completely new to her, with great courage and hard work; All of the teaching materials that were created in this way were not created as a product of a publishing house policy, but rather as a reaction to the needs of teachers and students recognized by it - and are therefore the result of a thought process that has flowed into the country-specific framework curricula, of authors from different countries in an invisible way across borders Network and has held together to this day. They are lecturers who are ready to commit themselves to university-specific and university-appropriate language teaching, which should provide European students with interdisciplinary qualifications, subject-related and interdisciplinary skills and key qualifications as well as language skills that are comparable at European level.

The following framework curricula emerged from the working groups in the various countries between which Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich tirelessly traveled back and forth:

• Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic (1998–2000: common version: 2006);
• Belarus (2004, never published; translated into Belarusian and Russian since 2012, but not yet published);
• Ukraine (2006: Co-editor: Ministry of Education and Science; New edition: 2015);
• Romania (in progress since 2006);
• Croatia (2007);
• Serbia (2010/2011);
• Bosnia-Herzegovina (2011);
• Macedonia (2013).

In February 2008, under Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich's supervision, an SDU Group Italy was also set up - a sign that the question initiated by her university project of how language teaching should be structured at university level in order to ensure sustainable communication skills in future generations develop, is equally acute in East and West: this need would never have come to the surface so clearly without Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich's commitment.

Dorothea Lévy-Hillerich was retired on April 30, 2002. In addition to working as a midwife with the above-mentioned curricula and two new textbooks, she also devoted herself to the management of a Leonardo project in Italy (1997–2001: "Creation of a center for linguistic resources in a transnational network for the development of technical language skills") the development of European competences in the secondary sector: this resulted in a learning and workbook "HIP HOP in den Beruf - Wholesale on the European internal market - for vocational schools in Europe" plus a teacher manual and the curricula, which is unique at European level, "Framework curriculum for professionally oriented DaF Teaching in the secondary level in the field of wholesale in the European internal market "and" Framework curriculum for the advanced training of teachers of German as a foreign language in the field of professional and technical language ".

In Nancy, she continued to organize or participate in conferences (most recently Paris , Belgrade , Freiburg , Warsaw, Krakow, Malinska, Luxembourg) with lectures and workshops, not only on the SDU, but also on "Games in Class" Another mainstay to which she has dedicated a book and magazine articles.

In addition to the activities related to her profession described above, however, her artistic nature (she played the piano and cello) came to fruition more intensively and increasingly in recent years: although she had organized concerts and exhibitions throughout her life, in which she repeatedly artists from the East and West brought together, but now every year in "May Europe" in Nancy she organized either a "European" concert (mostly with musicians from East and West) or an exhibition or an encounter with a writer.

Being a stranger - encounters and understanding

Her openness and curiosity about the new and the foreign and the ability to awaken the joy of discovery in other people and to open their eyes and ears to art was also expressed in the joy with which she organized and supervised study trips until shortly before her death, and took on the associated hardships and responsibilities: The study trips undertaken with ADECA (Association pour la Découverte de l'Espace Culturel Allemand) - e. B. to Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine - became an unforgettable experience for the German and French participants.

Works

• Lévy-Hillerich, D. (2001), Wholesale on the European Single Market: HIP HOP IN DEN BERUF, learning and workbook for German as a foreign language at vocational schools in Europe. Leonardo project. Contract no .: I / 97/1/29279 / PI / III.1a / CONT. (1997-2001).
• Lévy-Hillerich, D. (2002), Framework curriculum for the advanced training of teachers for German as a foreign language in the field of professional and technical languages, Leonardo project, 1/97/1/29279 / PI / III.1.a.CON. [online at: http // www.goethe.de / beruf].
• Lévy-Hillerich, D. et al. (2003), Communication in social and medical professions (textbook with glossaries, audio CD, teacher's manual) Goethe-Institut, Fraus, Plzeň, Cornelsen, Berlin.
• Lévy-Hillerich, D., Krajewska-Markiewicz, R. (Ed.) (2004), Study, Work, Live with German in Europe. Textbook with audio CD and teacher's manual, Fraus, Plzeň.
• Lévy-Hillerich, D. u. a. (2005), Communication in Tourism (textbook with glossaries, audio CD, teacher manual) Goethe-Institut, Fraus, Plzeň, Cornelsen, Berlin.
• Lévy-Hillerich, D. u. a. (2005), Communication in Agriculture (textbook with glossaries, audio CD, teacher's manual) Goethe-Institut, Fraus, Plzeň, Cornelsen, Berlin.
• Lévy-Hillerich, D., Serena, S. (eds.), (2009), German language classes in Europe: review and outlook. Attempt to determine your position. Aracne editrice, Rome
• Lévy-Hillerich, D. Fearns, A., (2009). Communication in the economy (textbook with glossaries, audio CD, teacher's manual) Goethe-Institut, Fraus, Plzeň, Cornelsen, Berlin.
• Lévy-Hillerich, D. Serena, S. Barić, K. Cickovska E. (eds.), (2010), Studying, working with GERMAN, living. A textbook for German lessons A2 / B1 (textbook with audio texts, working materials and word lists on an inserted CD, learning platform Moodle, teacher's manual on CD), Arcipelago Edizioni, Milano.
• Lévy-Hillerich, Dorothea (2016 in print), Framework Curricula for German as a Foreign Language in German Lessons at Universities and Colleges - Review and Outlook (1993–2013). Bozen: BUP-Bozen-Bolzano University Press.

Web links

• My personal encounter with Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe , Nancy: a Franco-German city partnership (Ed. M. Koch), Info Verlag, 2005
• From the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​to Implementation in Competency-Oriented German Lessons in Secondary Schools (ES and EST) - Proposals and teacher's handouts, drawn up by a working group of coordinators headed by Dorothea Levy-Hillerich, Ministère de l'éducation nationale et de la Formation professionnelle, 2008