Innovating language learning: meet Professor Ursula Stickler

Dr Ursula Stickler has been promoted to Professor of Online Language Teaching, following a career specialising in online language pedagogy, autonomous learning, and innovating research methodologies.

Professor Stickler joined The Open University (OU) in 2002, as a Lecturer in German. She has over two decades of experience in teaching, research, international collaboration, and editorship, and has contributed to innovative language education projects, peer-reviewed publications, and the development of language teachers worldwide.

Reflecting on her professorial promotion, Professor Stickler said, “With online technologies, language learning is easily accessible for everyone, and this promotion recognizes the importance of diverse languages at the OU and beyond.”

Teaching Interests

Since joining the OU, Professor Stickler has been involved in the creation of language courses and course materials for German, at all levels, and also English for Academic Purposes and the Chinese beginners' module. She has taught at residential schools and managed the online alternative learning experience (ALE) for those students who were unable to travel. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Stickler developed the fully online intensive one-week ALE using a project-based pedagogy; and a virtual excursion with 360-degree videos.

Professor Stickler supervises postgraduate students on the OU’s EdD and PhD doctoral programmes, on topics such as online language learning, social presence, vocabulary acquisition, and gender differences in language learning. Her reach extends beyond the OU, through working with academics across Europe to support language teachers in using technology.

Research interests

Professor Stickler’s research began in the areas of independent and autonomous learning of languages, including language advising, email Tandem learning, and self-assessment. At the OU, she has gone on to investigate distance education and the use of technology in teaching and teacher development, developing and implementing new research methods. She has used this expertise in online language learning to train Associate Lecturers new to the discipline.

She was chair of a research network of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) that looks at language teachers' perspectives and developments, and was co-editor of System, an international journal of educational technology and applied linguistics. Her current research publications cover the areas of technology enhanced language learning and online teaching skills, qualitative research methods, and sociocultural eyetracking.

Professor Stickler’s close association with the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) has led to a series of funded international projects, which began with DOTS (Developing Online Teaching Skills).

As part of the team DOTS/ ICT-REV (an ECML project promoting the pedagogically-based use of ICT tools and open resources in support of quality language teaching), she has been central in encouraging language teachers across Europe and in the wider world to integrate digital technology into their classroom practice.

She commented on this work, saying “We have reached thousands of practitioners and our work has led to changes in attitude, practice and policy, The emphasis on pedagogy over technology and a very participant-centred approach to staff development is unique to our consultancy work.”