Polishing Diamonds or Quixoticism: the Role of the Foreign Language Teacher Through the Lens of Metaphors

Dr. Saša Jazbec is a full professor of German language didactics at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. In her research work, she focuses on the broad interdisciplinary field of learning and teaching foreign languages and, within this framework, on professional topics such as early learning, methods and modern approaches to learning and teaching foreign languages, especially German, developing language skills, testing and assessing foreign language knowledge, literary didactics, learning a foreign language for children with dyslexia, and recently, artificial intelligence in and for foreign language teaching. She is a reviewer and co-author of textbook materials and a leader or collaborator in various scientific and professional, international and domestic projects, including deutschinfo+, ImTeam4EU, Traveller between worlds, e-didakla, Ein bisschen slovensko.

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: sasa.jazbec@um.si

Dr. Brigita Kacjan is an assistant professor of German didactics at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. She researches and works in a wide variety of, including interdisciplinary, areas; from specific professional areas of didactics, such as German and foreign language didactics, learning and teaching of adults and the elderly, key competences, digital aspects of learning and teaching, the importance and inclusion of games in teaching, to concrete, more language-oriented topics, such as learning and teaching German as a foreign language of the profession (for logistics, history, other professional fields). Within the framework of numerous projects, both domestic and European, she has dealt with phraseology, paremiology, learning and teaching of children with dyslexia, transversal competences, etc. She participates in numerous professional committees, including in the field of vocational matura (German), evaluation of study programs, in international and domestic professional and scientific associations.

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: brigita kacjan@um.si