As part of the Excellence Initiative 'The Research University of Gdańsk' the 'Visiting Professors at the University of Gdańsk' programme was established to internationalise scientific research and teaching activities conducted at the University of Gdańsk. It also lays the foundations for further cooperation, including joint publications, research and academic exchange, as well as improving language skills and making the forms and methods of teaching more attractive to students.

One of the laureates of the programme is Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer, professor of English and digital linguistics at the Chemnitz University of Technology, whom the Institute of Applied Linguistics of the Faculty of Philology will host until 3.06.

Elwira Romaniuk: - What are your impressions after the lecture you gave on May 24th and what are your general impressions of your stay?

Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer: - Very good! Dr Karolina Rudnicka, who invited me in the framework of the "Visiting Professors Programme" is an excellent host! It was great to see that my lecture attracted more than 100 guests, and I also had very interesting conversations with other researchers! What I have seen so far in Gdańsk is also extremely beautiful and I can't wait to get to know the city better in the upcoming days!

- What will you be working on during your stay at UG?

- I am teaching several classes (including a workshop for PhD students) and exploring potential opportunities for joint research with UG scientists. We will focus on creating new levels for "Bridge of Knowledge VR", which is an app we developed for creative language learning.

- I saw your app, 'Bridge of knowledge VR', I downloaded it and tried to cross the bridge but I succeeded only in the general knowledge test. I saw that even Arabic can be learnt there, with the calming sound of the forest in the background... I think I will stay there for some more time! What was it like working on the game? Who came up with the questions, and who made the beautiful graphics and music? Do you foresee working on more language learning apps?

- I am glad you enjoyed it and congratulations on crossing the "Bridge of Knowledge"! The fact that the specialist levels proved more difficult than the general knowledge level is not surprising, as the levels were created by academics for their students to repeat the content they had learned in class. Working on the game with my colleague Elisabeth Mayer from the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Munich and the project's student assistants (e.g. Ricarda Fasol, who created the beautiful graphics) was great fun right from the start! For the relaxing background sounds, we used existing sound files licensed under Creative Commons. And yes, I would definitely like to create more apps, including ones for language learning in the future!

- Why were you fascinated by linguistics, because of its usefulness and diversity, or were there other reasons?

- You pointed out the two main reasons why I love linguistics: because it is so diverse and encompasses everything to do with language, and because the results of linguistic research can have an impact on people's lives, including making it easier for them to learn a language. Also, growing up in a bilingual family, I started thinking about communication and the differences between languages from an early age.

- Do you think that knowing the properties of foreign languages facilitates communication between people, or are well-developed soft skills due solely to intuition and a person's natural predisposition?

- There are differences between individuals, but I definitely think it is useful to know something about the properties of language and how communication works in a given community. It is a continuous improvement of skills, like an athlete who is already very good, but can develop further with clear feedback from the coach.

- What is most important when learning a language?

- It really depends on the individual who is learning the language and what they need it for. For example, the learning methods of someone who needs to learn a basic level very quickly and someone who needs to write native-like academic texts will be very different. But on a general level, motivation, feedback and fun are always very helpful in language learning.

- What was your latest programme about?

- The latest software I co-created before 'Bridge of Knowledge VR' (with Johannes Tochtermann) is called "WordValue". It allows users to search the entire list of words in a text at once and count how often they occur. 'WordValue' also colour codes the search words in context based on the characteristics that users have previously assigned to them. This allows you to see at a glance how words in the text are related to each other.

- What are you currently working on?

- At the moment I am involved in several research projects, including LeDiT (Learning with Digital Testimonies), in which we are creating English subtitles and an English-language access structure for the interactive German-language testimony of Abba Naora, a Holocaust survivor, or TransGrimm, which aims to enable a contrastive digital analysis of German fairy tales by the Grimm brothers and their English translations.

- Thank you for the interview.