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Partner in DaF-Network: Catholic Portuguese University - Regional Center of Beiras, Viseu Portugal The "Catholic Portuguese University - Regional Center of Beiras, Viseu " is the participant from Portugal in DaF-Südost Netzwerk. The Portuguese Catholic University was founded in 1971 and is a public non-state institution. From the beginning the University has aimed at decentralizing research and lecturing, extending it from the major urban centres to the interior regions of Portugal. At present, the University is spread through 4 Regional Centres: Lisbon, Porto, Braga and Beiras. The Regional Centre of Beiras (CRB) has its headquarters in Viseu, where it was established in 1980, and also includes two further branches in Leiria and Figueira da Foz. At the CRB students can choose among a significant variety of areas: Classical or Modern Philology, History, Business Administration, Mathematics, Informatics, Architecture and Dentistry. In 1993 the Faculty of Philology was founded in Viseu and with it the Department of German Studies was established, the youngest in the country. Besides lectures in the area of German Literature, Linguistics, Language and Didactics, the department is also active in research and is one of the University poles of the Interuniversity Research Centre of German Studies in Portugal. The department has established an agreement for cooperation and student exchange with three German Universities: University of Hamburg, University of Bamberg and the Europe-University in Frankfurt/Oder. Portuguese students profit from these exchanges every year, and the University in Viseu has already welcome German students as well. The German department has also been an active partner in European projects: LINGUA A: Exchange to Change (http://www.sbg.ac.at/rom/people/lekt/co/echanger) LINGUA A: Staging Foreign Language Learning (http://www.nibis.ni.schule.de/europa) COMENIUS 2: GEH-MIT (www.ea.gr/geh-mit) The lecturers at the department are also responsible for the supervision of the initial training of student-teachers at schools, which has encouraged the proximity of the University with the local community. This is also the aim of several events that the department organises every semester at the University. The activities of the German Department are supervised and coordinated by Prof. Peter Hanenberg, Professor for German Literature. The further lecturers are Ana Margarida Abrantes, (Assistant), Esmeraldina Martins, (Assistant) and Frank Leppert (Lector). For further information: on the Regional Centre of Beiras of the Portuguese Catholic University: www.crb.ucp.pt on the Department for German Studies: http://www2.crb.ucp.pt/Estudosalemaes/index.htm The key person/expert responsible in the network: Ana Margarida Abrantes received her first degree in English and German Studies in 1996 from the University of Aveiro (Portugal). With grants from the DAAD, ERASMUS, IAESTE and ÖAD she spent several semesters at the universities of Stuttgart, Essen, Hohenheim (Germany) and Innsbruck (Austria). She obtained her Masters degree in 2001 in the field of Cognitive Linguistics. Her research interests focus on Cognitive Poetics and Contrastive Cognitive Linguistics. She has been working as an Assistant for German Linguistics and Didactics at the CRB. Besides lecturing and research, she is also teacher trainer and supervisor of German student-teachers at regional secondary schools. Frank Leppert was born in Berlin and lives and works in Portugal since 1985. He completed his first degree in Portuguese and German Studies at the FU-Berlin and the University of Coimbra and obtained his Masters Degree on Contrastive Linguistics at the University of Lisbon. He has teached German in various institutions, among which the University of Aveiro and the Goethe-Institut in Coimbra. He works as a Lector for German Language at the CRB since 1993, where he teaches German language and supervises student-teachers at local schools. The network community daf-netzwerk.org is open for participants from all over the world. You can easily register as a member of the community, if you are interested in innovation and European consciousness in methodology and practice of German teaching and learning. As a member you can discuss in a protected area of the website direct with all partners of the network-project and you and your institution are listed on the member site with a link to your own homepage. Online-registration as a member. Do you have questions? Please contact us. The DaF-Network Team