Staff exchange – Karolinska Institutet

Teacher: Anna Eva Hallin, Assistant professor, CLINTEC, Division of Speech and Language Pathology Exchange: Erasmus+, RTWH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany Dates: 24-25 April, 2025

I am on my way home from two wonderful (but rainy) days in Aachen, where I had the opportunity to teach for bacherlor level and master level speech language pathology (SLP) students, and have meetings with several of the teachers in the SLP program to discuss and plan the first student exchanges between our two programs and further teacher exchanges in both directions.

The SLP program at the RTWH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälisch Technische Hochschule Aachen) is located in the Uniklinik Aachen, the largest single building hospital in Europe, 15 minutes by bus from Aachen city center. Aachen is a university town with a long history (think Celtic, Roman, Frankish empire) and is located in the westernmost part of Germany, close to the borders to the Netherlands and Belgium.

[Picture 1: me outside Uniklinikum]

The Uniklinik Aachen is a very unique building, both outside and inside – and not very hospital like inside, apart from the size.

[Picture 2: inside Uniklinikum]

The first whole afternoon of my visit I taught SLP bachelor and master’s students on topics related to theory and practice of school-age children’s language and literacy. It is always very enriching to meet students with different experiences and I particularly enjoyed our discussions about SLT practice in Germany related to these topics. Professor Dr. Stefan Heim, chairman of the SLP study program was my wonderful host and guide throughout the visit and it was in his courses that I was invited to teach.

Planning of student and teacher exchanges

The second day of my visit was dedicated to meetings with teachers in the SLP program, prospective exchange students and a campus tour. I had the opportunity to present “the English semester” at the KI SLP program, which Aachen students can enroll in as an Erasmus+ exchange student, and the reception from both teachers and students made me feel excited that we are able to offer this for incoming students!

Two RWTH Aachen students are already planning to do the exchange at KI in 2026 and I had meetings with both of them to tell them a bit more about our courses – and I definitely think they will be able to enrich our SLP program with their experiences from the German SLP education and culture.

[Picture 3: part of the campus where SLP students get their training]

I also learned more about the structure of the SLP degrees at RWTH Aachen; they offer a 3 year professional degree, a one year bachelor program, and a two-year master’s program. Graduates can work as clinicians after three years, but many choose to do at least the bachelor’s program at Aachen University. We identified areas that could be good for future teacher exchanges, and discussed topics for the KI SLP students planned Erasmus-exchange within their final thesis project. The faculty here is quite diverse in terms of their academic backgrounds so our students might have co-supervisors in neuropsyhology, linguistics or speech and langauge pathology, and plenty of interesting data to explore.

What’s not on the agenda can be a highlight

I think that teacher exchanges in person can be particularly valuable because you can also talk about things outside a planned agenda in a different way than if you just set up a digital meeting. I happened to talk to Dr. Anne Parma (faculty in the SLP program) after one of my lectures and she mentioned that their SLP master’s students get courses in didactis. This caught my interest and I wonder if she could tell me more about it. She ended up preparing a presentation for our next day meeting, which was very inspiring.

The master’s program that they offer here explicitly prepare the students both for research and teaching in higher education, including some supervision training. The didactis coursework includes theoretical frameworks and practical methods of teaching and learning, a teaching sample and external teaching experience at the university level.

I thought this was very interesting and a wonderful way to make sure that non-PhD clinical teachers get teaching training within their program of study, since teaching and research are closely aligned, and most research positions will entail teaching assignments as well.

All in all, this was a very fruitful visit, and I’m looking forward to further collaboration in teaching and research with the colleagues at RWTH Aachen University, and get our student mobility up and running in spring 2026!

This was a short visit but next time I visit I will make sure to make it to do a guided tour of the cathedral and also do some thermal spring bathing :).

Auf Wiedersehen Aachen!