Dr. Ulrike Behrens, born in 1967, obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Hildesheim. After sixteen years as lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, she has now returned to Hildesheim as member of the academic staff at the Institute of German Language and Literature. Her teaching focuses on language didactics for trainee teachers, covering topics ranging from written language acquisition in primary schools to the diagnosis and promotion of reading skills across all school levels. Recently, she has developed and implemented a seminar concept in which student groups work autonomously on carefully prepared tasks, departing from traditional lecture-based formats.

In her research and publications, Ulrike focuses on oral communication skills in first language (L1) education, particularly on listening skills. Within the Swiss-German project stịm·mig, she developed and evaluated listening-specific test items. An English-language presentation of the project was published in L1 in 2019 (together with Sebastian Weirich). The final stịm·mig project report and a textbook on oral communication in the classroom are among her most recent publications. She currently serves as scientific advisor for the development of “Vergleichsarbeiten” (comparison tests for third-grade students) and participated in standardization studies for the revised educational standards in Germany. Dr. Behrens has been a member of ARLE since 2018 and serving on the board as treasurer since 2022; she is also a member of Symposion Deutschdidaktik e.V. (SDD) and Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik (GAL).