A FWF funded project at University of Vienna (Project V-975) 2022 – 2026
Project Team
Elizabeth J. Erling, PhD
Elizabeth Erling (Beth) is the principal investigator of the Udele project and Elise-Richter Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Vienna, Austria. She is also Professor of ELT Research & Methodology at the University of Education Upper Austria (PH Oberösterreich) in Linz, where she is involved in the professional development of English language teachers in Austria. Beth is a specialist in language teaching and teacher education, with over 20 years of experience in ELT. She has taught at the University of Vienna, the University of Graz, the Open University, UK and the Freie Universität Berlin. Her research investigates the potential contribution of (English) language education to social justice, and seeks solutions that improve students’ experience of learning languages at school. She has worked as an educational researcher and teacher educator on projects in the UK, Germany, Bangladesh, Korea, India and Ghana. At the moment, the focus of her work is using multilingualism as a resource for English learning in Austrian middle schools.
Miriam Weidl, PhD
Miriam Weidl (Mia) is a Postdoctoral researcher and Co-I in the Udele project, as well as a lecturer on multilingualism at the University of Vienna, Austria. Prior to this, she worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where she conducted research on small-scale multilingualism in Senegal and is a founding member of the LILIEMA association (www.liliema.com). Her investigations were approached from ethnographic sociolinguistic and anthropological perspectives. Her doctoral thesis, undertaken at SOAS, University of London, and conducted as part of the Crossroads project, focused on examining the role of Wolof, the most prevalent language in Senegal, within the multilingual repertoires of individuals residing in the village of Djibonker (soascrossroads.org). Mia is bringing fresh perspectives to the Udele project through her sociolinguistic understandings of multilingualism, expertise in participatory methodologies and experience of supporting learning through linguistic awareness and self-confidence developed through research in West Africa.
Research Assistants
Anita Ghoreshi, BEd
Anita is pursuing her MEd degree (English and French) and MA degree in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at the University of Vienna. During her studies, Anita has developed a strong interest in multilingualism and seeks to study its effects in the classroom, as well as the potential implications it has on the struggle towards social justice. In 2023, Anita became an invaluable addition to Udele as a research assistant, conducting multilingual interviews in English, German, Dari and Farsi, handling transcriptions and translations, and contributing group discussions. For her master’s thesis, Anita launched the “Pie in the Sky” reading project to explore how a translanguaging approach, combined with reading logs, could enhance students’ understanding of in-class reading, develop their identities as multilingual readers and create opportunities for the involvement of parents in the learning process.
Amina Račević, BEd
Amina is pursuing a Master’s degree in Education studying German and History/Political Education at the University of Vienna. She is particularly interested in the role of multilingualism within the Austrian education system in relation to promoting educational equity. In her Bachelor’s thesis, she investigated the identity constructs of multilingual postmigrant students in Vienna. Since 2023, Amina has worked as a research assistant in the Udele Team, where she is involved in conducting, transcribing, and translating interviews in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, German and English. Additionally, she contributes to managing the project’s website and participates in school workshops and other team events.
Ena Kulauzović, BEd
Ena is finishing her MEd degree in Secondary Education, studying English and Biology at the Pädagogische Hochschule Oberösterreich in Linz. After helping out Beth at the PHOÖ as a student assistant, she was invited to work as a research assistant at the University of Vienna for the Udele Project. She strives to bring more awareness to the advantages of multilingualism in English lessons and to cater to students’ needs by taking their language repertoire and cultures into account when designing lesson plans and materials. Since 2024, Ena has helped with organizing and developing lesson materials for teachers. Speaking Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and moderate levels of Spanish, she adds multilingual examples to materials for teachers to use in their lessons.
Kübra Kilinç
Kübra is a student of English and Biology at the University of Vienna pursuing a career as a secondary school teacher. Born in Turkey, she moved to Vienna at the age of one, where she grew up and went to school. As a multilingual, Kübra became interested in using multilingualism as a resource for learning through a university course with Beth, and wrote her Bachelor’s thesis on this topic. Kübra joined Udele in 2023 as a research assistant, transcriber, and translator, utilizing Turkish, English, and German.
Mbarka Romdhane
Mbarka Romdhane graduated from university as a software engineer. As a mother of two bilingual children, multilingualism is her quotidian. After moving to Austria, she was fascinated by the multicultural and multilingual Viennese society while also witnessing the challenges it creates. In 2022 she joined the Udele team as a research assistant to interview and translate from English to Arabic, hoping to help multilingual students raise their voices and better express their needs and identities.
Nayyab Kanwal Rana, BEd
Nayyab is currently pursuing her MEd degree (English and German) at the University of Vienna. Having a migration background herself, she empathizes with children and adults who face language barriers in Austria. For this reason, she values multilingualism and views diverse linguistic repertoires as strengths rather than weaknesses. By utilizing these resources in school lessons, she hopes to support her students’ journey towards embracing their own linguistic diversity as a precious asset. Nayyab joined Udele in 2023 and supports the project by conducting interviews, providing translations in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, English and German, and facilitating school workshops.