Friederike Fichtner

Friederike Fichtner is Assistant Professor of German and Second Language Acquisition at California State University, Chico. She received her Ph.D. in German and Second Language Acquisition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015, where she served as a Teaching Fellow in the College of Letters & Science. She has also studied at Georgetown University, the National University of Ireland, Galway, and the University of Dresden, where she received her M.A. in German literature, culture, and philosophy. Prior to coming to CSU Chico, she taught German and foreign language pedagogy at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also coordinated the first-year German language program and mentored foreign language teaching assistants.

Dr. Fichtner teaches undergraduate courses in German and graduate courses in Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Pedagogy. She also serves as the Director of the M.A. program in Language Teaching.

Dr. Fichtner’s scholarship has grown alongside of her sincere enjoyment of teaching. Her research interests are centered in the field of Second Language Acquisition, with a focus on intercultural competence, L2 pragmatics, and the role of socio-cultural knowledge and cultural identity in foreign language learning. She takes a special interest in the relationship between learners’ and German native speakers’ perspectives on language use, specifically expressions of affection. Her current research explores the notions of cultural difference as compared to cultural contrast, particularly in light of intracultural variation. She has co-authored an article on the cultural identities of foreign language teachers (L2 Journal, 2011), and an article on first-language use in the teaching of culture has appeared in DieUnterrichtspraxis/Teaching German.