The ReaLiTea Team
The ReaLiTea team is an international research consortium that brings together researchers and language teacher educators from across the European Education Area. We are located in Austria, Germany, Greece, Norway, Türkiye and the UK. You can learn more about us by reading the bios below.
Meet Our Team
Caro Blume
Caro Blume leads the ReaLiTea project. She is professor of English education, literature, and culture at the Heidelberg University of Education (Germany). Her areas of research and teaching include critical ELT, digital literacies, and inclusion. Her passion is preparing future teachers to meet the needs of all learners.
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Christina Ringel
Dr. Christina Ringel is a PostDoc researcher in DoKoLL and a member by courtesy of the Faculty of Cultural Studies (English Didactics / Applied Linguistics). Her current research interests include the teaching of endangered as well as more widely spoken additional languages with the help of language learning apps. During a five-year stint at the university library, she strengthened students’ research literacy.
Raúl Enrique García López
Raúl García is a research associate in DoKOLL, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English Language Teaching at the TU Dortmund. His doctoral research is an investigation into student teachers’ role identities regarding research, through the lens of the dynamic systems model. Mr. García teaches courses on English didactics, including project-based learning and research literacy.
Aysel Saricaoglu Aygan
Aysel Saricaoglu Aygan is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at ASBU. She received her PhD degree in Applied Linguistics and Technology from Iowa State University, USA as a Fulbright scholar. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses on technology-enhanced language learning, academic writing, critical thinking, research methods, and second language acquisition.
Kenan Dikilitas
Kenan DikilitaÅŸ is professor of University Pedagogy at University of Stavanger in Norway. He previously worked in Turkey on graduate and undergraduate teacher education programs. His recent research interests include teacher education and professional development with emphasis on action research and bilingual teaching.
Achilleas Kostoulas
Achilleas Kostoulas is an applied linguist and language teacher educator at the University of Thessaly in Greece. His resaerch interests multiple aspects of language teaching and learning, such as language policy, language contact, appropriate pedagogy and more, which he approaches holistically through a complex systems lens.
Georgios Vleioras
Dr. Georgios Vleioras is Assistant Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Thessaly in Greece. His research interests include identity (with an emphasis on narrative identity), transition to adulthood (with an emphasis on perceived adulthood criteria) and admiration.
Eleni Motsiou
Eleni Motsiou is Assistant Professor at the Department of Early Childhood Education at the University of Thessaly. Her research interests include the study and promotion of multilingualism, language policy in education, language contact and plurilingual language acquisition.
Sofia Tsioli
Dr. Sofia Tsioli is a French language teacher and an adjuct lecturer in research methodology at the Hellenic Open University. Her research interests include language/linguistic rights, multilingual education policies, research methodology in multilingual/ multicultural (educational) contexts, and research ethics.
Jenny Tassou
Jenny Tassou is a Special Education Teacher with extensive experience working with children with special needs. Holding three Master’s degrees in Counseling Psychology, Educational Administration and Adult Education, she has a strong academic background and a deep understanding of diverse learning needs.
Chrysa Ntai
2024-2025
Ms Chrysa Ntai is a research associate at the University of Thessaly, where she is pursuing doctoral studies. She is a graduate of the Department of Pre-School Education of the University of Thessaly (2018), and holds an MA in Life-long Learning and Special Needs Education from the University of Macedonia (2022).
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Prof. Marsden is a professor of second language acquisition. She is founder and principal investigator of OASIS and IRIS, as well as, in collaboration with teachers, Language-Driven Pedagogy (formerly, the National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy, 2018-2023). She has also been involved in various advisory roles, including the government’s Department for Education’s expert subject advisory group. Prof. Marsden was associate editor then journal editor of Language Learning from 2015 to 2022. She has over 70 publications on a range of topics including open science and second language learning and education.
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Julia Hüttner
Prof. Hüttner is Chair of English Language Education with a joint affiliation to the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies and the Centre for Teacher Education. Her research focuses on bilingual educational programmes, mostly Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and on teacher development. She has published widely in leading journals, as well as for major publishing houses.
Julia Pittenauer
Julia Pittenauer is a research associate at the University of Vienna, where she is currently pursuing a PhD in English Language Teaching and teaches English language pedagogy. She holds a teaching degree in English and Italian as a Foreign Language (MEd, 2021). In her PhD project, she focuses on teacher cognition and the development of EFL teacher knowledge in different stages of a teaching career.
Yela Schauwecker
Yela Schauwecker is a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Stuttgart. She recently obtained a project for applied foreign language didactics which primarily aims at fostering reception of empirical research by teachers. This is jointly funded by the University of Stuttgart and by the Center for School Quality and Teacher Development. She is known for “Updates”, a teacher training series that interprets recent research results as to their practical implications for foreign language teaching.
Saskia Schabio
Saskia Schabio is a researcher in the Department of American Studies. A licensed and experienced secondary school teacher, she coordinates the Teaching English as a Foreign Language programme at the University of Stuttgart. In one of her current projects “LehrerbildungPLUS: Heterogeneity & Digitalisation”, she is responsible for research design as well as conference coordination.