Dr Klaus Fischer

Qualifications

"Erste Staatsprüfung für das Lehramt für die Sekundarstufe II (Philosophie, Deutsch)" (Bonn University)
PhD, "Investigations into Verb Valency, contrasting German and English," (University of Wales)

Role

Reader in German, Course Leader of BA German Studies, Stage Organiser for German 1, 3, 5 (Open Language Programme), Tutor for Linguistics on BA English Language, MA International English Language Teaching - Applied Language Studies and MA Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Member of the Humanities, Arts and Languages Research Sub-Committee, Member of the Arts and Humanities Research Ethics Review Panel, Research Mentor for the Centre for Transcultural Research, Member of the Institute for the Study of European Transformation, Departmental Outreach Co-ordinator.

Klaus’s professional life in Britain started in Wales as the German Assistant in two comprehensive schools and as DAAD Lektor at the University of Wales. In 1989 he was appointed Lecturer in German at one of the predecessor institutions of London Metropolitan University, the City of London Polytechnic.

He has been involved in numerous course validations, including co-ordinating the development of an MA in Contemporary German Studies. He has also helped develop a number of cross-departmental modules that concentrate on the structure of English but also allows London Met’s many multilingual students to explore their various languages.

Klaus’s research is based on his two teaching interests of German and linguistics: in his PhD thesis he contrasted German and English verb constructions, adapting the Mannheim model of dependency grammar and valency theory for this purpose.

He has since made contributions to the foundation of valency theory and to the typology of German and English and has also co-ordinated the German 2001 RAE submission (grade 4) and supported the 2008 submission to European Studies. In 2002 he was appointed Reader in German. He has been External Examiner for German at a number of institutions (currently at Manchester University and Anglia Ruskin University), including PhD degrees (Surrey, Ghent). He is a member of the Advisory Board for Phrasis: Studies in Language and Literature (Ghent) with responsibility for General Linguistics. He was also external advisor for the re-validation of Languages and Intercultural Studies (Anglia Ruskin University 2006) and is member of the Steering Committee of the "Routes into Languages Capital L Consortium."