Teaching
2017 was a very active year as far as teaching was concerned. I taught technical English to six groups of electronics technicians at the Berufsförderungswerk (BFW) vocational rehabilitation center nearly every week, which is something I have been doing since 2009. I also teach a conversation course for employees who work for the parliamentary group of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus every week as well. And English lessons at KSN Tax Consultants went into its ninth year in 2017! I continue to have a variety of private clients who generally want one-on-one lessons in order to improve their English for specific purposes, i.e. presentations at conferences, dealing with clients or negotiations. I look forward to continuing these lessons in the year to come, as well as to starting lessons with new clients.
Translating
I have also had a good deal of work translating and editing a variety of texts and books this past year. 2016 ended with the publication of Baumeister magazine's special David Chipperfield Architects issue, which was done entirely in English. I put together a team of four translators to complete all the work, much of which was done under a great deal of time pressure. Exhibition texts for the IGA 2017 Federal Garden Show in Berlin kept me busy through the spring and summer. Kamel Louafi's latest book Urban Landscapes Between Occident and Orient (which has been recently published in four languages) was also a project I worked on for several months. It is a delightful and colorful look at the author's personal and professional journey through life. Bartenbach lighting design in Austria asked me to translate a number of newsletters and website texts for them, and I also translated many project-related descriptions for a variety of landscape architecture offices in Germany. A real highlight for me was the translation of a text describing Bengladeshi architect Marina Tabassum's wonderful mosque in Dhaka (Dhaka Can Be Everywhere), written by the Swiss architect Niklaus Graber for the 08/17 edition of Baumeister magazine. And I have just finished work translating, editing and proofreading a variety of articles for the 101st edition of Callwey Verlag's Topos magazine, which is the 25th issue I have been involved with.
ELTAB-B
I became a member of English Language Teachers' Association Berlin-Brandenburg (ELTAB-B)
in 2008, an affiliate of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.
The organization is a professional association and resource group for teachers of English
as a foreign language and other English language practitioners in the Berlin-Brandenburg area.
CEFR Guidelines
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment,
abbreviated as CEFR, is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign
languages across Europe. It was put together by the Council of Europe as the main part of the
project "Language Learning for European Citizenship" between 1989 and 1996. Its main aim is to
provide a method of assessing and teaching which applies to all languages in Europe. In November
2001 a European Union Council Resolution recommended using the CEFR to set up systems of
validation of language ability. The six reference levels (see below) are now widely accepted as
the European standard for grading an individual's language proficiency. Most English courses
and learning materials in Europe now incorporate this system in order to ease language learning
and assessment.
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