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Schedule, Teachers' Day 2025
Schedule
7th October 2025
Teachers' Day kicks off with the Keynote presentation. The workshops will follow as two rounds of concurrent sessions. Registration deadline: 29th September 2025.
Teachers' Day 2025 schedule online (opens QR-code [to be added later])
| 08:30: WELCOME | |
| 09:15: KEYNOTE PRESENTATION | Keynote: Prof. Dr. Detmar Meurers (short bio) Where can AI-methods support teachers and learners in Task-Supported Language Learning? |
| Abstract: In foreign language teaching practice in German schools, there is a common disconnect between the generally shared goal of fostering functional language use in tasks and the use of workbooks and examinations with exercises that are unconnected to this goal. The focus on exercise-based practice is shared by Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), which in principle can support individual language learners by adaptively selecting appropriately complex exercises on developmentally proximal learning targets and by provide feedback on learner answers to scaffold their learning. While this helps address some of the substantial heterogeneity of students, this will only become effective and enable more students to actively participate in class if the individualized practice is meaningfully connected to the functional language use in the classroom. Based on our ITS FeedBook and its use in real-life school education, I will focus on how the individualized practice is organized as pre-task activities and the learner is informed and motivated through criterial information displayed in a learner dashboard to link their mastery of curricular language means to functional language tasks in class. The discussion is based on results from several randomized, controlled field studies fully embedding the system use in authentic school contexts. | |
| 10:30–11:00: COFFEE BREAK | Join us in the Aula for tea, coffee, and snacks. |
| WORKSHOPS 11:15–13:00 | First round (concurrent workshops) |
| 11:15: Workshop A | Stefan Labenz (short bio) Level up students’ speaking skills |
| Abstract: Want to get your students talking? Digital games can spark real conversations, boost confidence, and make speaking practice feel effortless. In this workshop, you'll discover how to turn gameplay into meaningful language learning, create a classroom atmosphere where students want to speak, and choose the right digital tools to keep them engaged. You’ll walk away with ready-to-use lessons, practical assessment sheets, and fresh inspiration to bring fun and interactivity into your lessons. | |
| 11:15: Workshop B | Christoph Lenz (short bio) OSS / digital tools: Ways to evaluate, improve and motivate your students. |
Abstract: This workshop explores the integration of digital tools within OSS (Online Schule Saarland / Moodle / H5P) to enhance students’ engagement and progress in communicative activities. By leveraging these tools, teachers can continuously assess student development, gain valuable insights into their learning processes, and create space for meaningful practice. Participants will engage in a structured approach to designing tasks that prepare students for spoken communication and collaborative activities. The session will revolve around practical examples of tasks that connect and combine activities within a complex learning framework. By the end of the workshop, attendees will have developed a learning path, learning map, and/or edu-breakout setting aimed at fostering students' speaking skills. This session offers participants a hands-on opportunity to explore methods for evaluation, skills development, and student motivation in the language-learning classroom. | |
| 11:15: Workshop C | Henning Peppel (short bio) Task-based language teaching goes digital |
| Abstract: Based on the macro-methodological approach of task-based language teaching, this workshop aims to raise teachers' awareness regarding the practical promotion of speaking skills in English lessons. Often, too much emphasis is placed on vocabulary and grammar in the classroom, with insufficient focus on developing speaking skills, one of the central goals of English instruction. After a brief theoretical introduction, this event will present specific learning tasks that can be immediately implemented in the classroom, ensuring that students experience English lessons as both challenging and positive. | |
| 11:15: Workshop D | Janine Bruns and Dr. Philipp Siepmann (short bios) Fostering and Assessing Speaking in the EFL Classroom: Introducing the OraCycle |
| Abstract: In a recent series of policy papers on education in the age of digitalisation and artificial intelligence, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (Kultusministerkonferenz; KMK 2021, 2024) postulated a 'new culture of tasks and assessment'. This includes a stronger focus on the learning process, metacognition, reflection on learning, and the four so-called future skills (4 Cs) of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. This workshop presents one way of putting this new culture of tasks and assessment into practice in the EFL classroom. It introduces the OraCycle (Siepmann & Bruns in print), a concept for fostering and assessing oracy (Mündlichkeitskompetenz, Siepmann 2024) which was developed in a collaborative design-based research project with teachers at a partner school between 2019 and 2023. In this workshop, we will demonstrate how it can be used to develop learners’ speaking and listening competences in a sustainable and holistic way, all while they are working on highly motivating projects such as developing their own podcast episodes. We will provide workshop participants with digital OER (Open Educational Resources) materials to help them develop their own teaching concepts based on the OraCycle framework. | |
| 11:15: Workshop E | Chris Sowton (short bio) Task-based learning using the Sustainable Development Goals to develop students’ language skills and a more global worldview |
| Abstract: The complex and unpredictable events of the last few years demand a response by education systems. A “business as usual” approach is insufficient given that this instability seems to be now firmly embedded for the foreseeable future. Language teaching – which has always been progressive, civic-minded and humanistic – has a major role to play in developing the knowledge, tools and values required by young people to navigate this uncertain future. Combining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with task-based learning, the classroom can become a space in which excellent language learning can take place whilst simultaneously developing their worldview. This workshop will look at practical ideas for your students (individually) and your classes and institutions (collectively) to use the SDGs as a platform to implement meaningful change, in both the ‘real’ and the digital world. The result will be that these young people are not only able to perform better in their formal examinations, they will also have a more rounded worldview. | |
| 11:15: Workshop F | Yannick Stark (short bio) Using H5P in task-based language teaching |
Abstract: H5P is open-source software available as a plug-in for course management systems such as Moodle, which allows users to create, share and reuse interactive content for Moodle courses. H5P provides easy access to a plethora of different tasks and formats which can be selected, shared and adapted without requiring coding skills. While H5P also permits the creation of tests, it is best used for integrating media along with interactive tasks, vivid explanations, and supplementary comments or scaffolding material to build a coherent and interesting lesson in a digital environment. H5P also excels at providing instant feedback and integrating means of differentiation to cater to heterogeneous learners. This workshop will give an overview of H5P content types with a strong focus on their practical and technical implementation in a Moodle course. The workshop’s goal is to provide each participant with a solid set of guidelines and technical instructions on how to set up H5P tasks in their Moodle courses. The focus is on best-practice workflow recommendations. | |
| 13:00–14:00: LUNCH BREAK | Join us in the Aula for tea, coffee, and snacks. |
| WORKSHOPS 14:15–16:00 | Second round (concurrent workshops). See First Round [above] for abstracts and links to short bios |
| 14:15: Workshop A | Stefan Labenz Level up students’ speaking skills |
| 14:15: Workshop B | Christoph Lenz OSS / digital tools: Ways to evaluate, improve and motivate your students. |
| 14:15: Workshop C | Henning Peppel Task-based language teaching goes digital |
| 14:15: Workshop D | Janine Bruns and Dr. Philipp Siepmann Fostering and Assessing Speaking in the EFL Classroom: Introducing the OraCycle |
| 14:15: Workshop E | Chris Sowton Task-based learning using the Sustainable Development Goals to develop students’ language skills and a more global worldview |
| 14:15: Workshop F | Yannick Stark Using H5P in task-based language teaching |
| 16:15: COFFEE BREAK, RAFFLE, AND FAREWELL | Join us in the Aula for the chance to win great prizes. |
Location: Saarland University, Aula (Keynote, coffee breaks, lunch, and book exhibition); workshops in the Innovation Center (next door …). Click here to see the event location on a map.
Photos taken at Teachers' Day
Datenschutz
Please be aware of the fact that we will take a handful of pictures during the event, and that a selection will be posted on our website. For the most part, participants will appear in these photos as "Beiwerk," that is, not as the specific focus of the image but rather as relatively nameless members of the event masses. Participants can retroactively request that an image in which they appear be removed.