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Tallinn University has announced a public competition to fill the position of Research Fellow in Language Didactics (Postdoctoral) for the period 01.09.2023 – 31.08.2024 (with the possibility of extension for 9 months until 31.05.2025). Documents required for application.

The deadline for applying for the position is 03.04.2023 (inclusive) through .

Academic unit: School of Humanities

General description of the position

The candidate will be expected to undertake research in one of the following areas:

• language and content learning, pluriliteracy;
• (language) education in multilingual classroom.

At the moment, Estonia is in an interesting phase of transition to Estonian-language education. Up until now Estonian as a second language is mostly learned in Estonian language classrooms, only immersion programs have been implementing CLIL. Forthcoming years can be expected to be challenging for content teachers in Estonian schools who currently lack knowledge and skills to support language learning in their content lessons. Therefore the language and content learning has become particularly important. However, we are lacking design-based programmes to adapt this approach in our school system on a larger scale. Furthermore, the studies on implementing CLIL are almost non-existing in the context of teaching Estonian. The outcome of the postdoctoral fellow's research should be applicable to both teacher education and in-service training.

The second challenge Estonian schools are facing is the trend towards a multilingual and multicultural classroom. The setting of foreign language education in Estonia is currently based on the assumption of a linguistically homogeneous classroom. Due to the increase of migration over the last years, however, a growing number of foreign language teachers in Estonian schools, especially in urban areas, work in multilingual settings, i.e. they have students in their classrooms who are capable of functioning in different languages. The classrooms are becoming increasingly heterogeneous and the students’ needs have to be addressed accordingly. Since the multilingual classroom in Estonia with its specific settings has not yet received thorough scholarly attention, there is a range of questions concerning language acquisition and learning to be addressed.

The Postdoctoral Fellow is expected to contribute to the research in one of the two areas described above, to conduct research in Estonia and collaborate with scholars at Tallinn University. The Fellow is expected to conduct her/his own research on a chosen topic independently, write and publish academic papers, and demonstrate own initiative in above-mentioned activities, providing solutions to the above-mentioned problems for teacher training programs and in-service training.

Requirements for the candidate (incl. professional experience requirements): The candidate must meet the requirements for the research fellow position, listed in the Annex 5 of the Employment Relations Rules of Tallinn University.

• Applicants must have received the PhD in linguistics within five years of start date outside Tallinn University;
• Qualified candidates will have a background in linguistics or language teaching, with the focus of language and content learning or pluriliteracy.

Start of the employment contract: 01.09.2023 – 31.08.2024 (with the possibility of extension for 9 months until 31.05.2025). The terms of the contract will be agreed upon with the competition winner. / Workload: 1,0 / Remuneration: by agreement, according to Tallinn University Remuneration Regulation / Location: Tallinn, Estonia

Required application documents shall be submitted by 3st April 2023 (incl) through

Time-schedule of the competition and the selection procedure

Additional information: please refer your administrative questions to konkurss@tlu.ee and for topical questions professor Reili Argus reili.argus@tlu.ee

Job description in Estonian (Keeledidaktika teadur (järeldoktor))