Ms Baerbel Brash

Professional biography

• Digital Tools and Learner Participation in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning for Wellbeing
• Motivation and Learner Identity in Virtual Learning Environments
• Access to Language Learning and Learner Inclusion
• Language Awareness and Language Coaching
• Foreign Language Anxiety

My teaching interests span a wide range of topics in German languages, cultures and linguistics. At the OU, I have tutored on all German modules and been recognised with OU Teaching Excellence Awards in 2007 and 2021.

I have been a member of the Module Award Panel on L193 and L313 and course director of the L223 online residential school.

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I contribute to the innovative external engagement activities of the School of Languages and Linguistics across Scotland, in enterprise as well as research. In the HEIF-funded knowledge exchange project ‘Benefits of language learning for senior learners’ I have collaborated with the social enterprise Lingo Flamingo and the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, and Madrid to develop new pedagogical approaches to deliver languages teaching to senior learners, and community engagement and employability opportunities for volunteer tutors and care workers.  I have co-written the award-winning online short CPD course ‘Learning Languages with Senior Learners’ which aligns with what is at the heart of the Open University’s mission: social justice. I believe in creating an inclusive community and responding positively to different needs and circumstances so that everyone can access and participate in learning opportunities and achieve their potential.

The project featured in the OU’s 2022 Employability Best Practice Guide, and one of our students contributed to the 2021 BBC Radio 4 documentary Lost for Words.

My work has allowed me to forge links with teachers worldwide, and in recent years more particulary with colleagues in Sweden, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In 2022 I collaborated with Professor Thomas Strasser (Pädagogische Hochschule Wien) on the project Methodik, Didaktik, Digital to contribute to the online training and development of school teachers in Egypt.