Department of English and German Studies

Head of Department:

Ivana Marinić, Assistant Professor, Ph.D.

Name and surname	Ivana Marinić, Ph.D.
Position	Assistant professor
E-mail	imarinic@foozos.hr
Office	66
Research interests	figurative language and thought; acquisition of English as a foreign language
	Taught English in a primary school for ten years. Took interest in drama techniques in education, education of adults and children with behaviour issues, and education of children with special educational needs. Mentored trainee teachers and apprentice teachers of English. Published three drama plays for children in the current Croatian language textbook „Snaga riječi“ by Školska knjiga. Teaches English speaking practice and English language of early and pre-school education at the Faculty of Education in Osijek. Took part in the project of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek „The analysis of interference in translation of grammatical structures from English to Croatian in literature, media and marketing“. A member of the organising committee of the 8th international conference Children and Languages Today. A member of the Croatian Association of Applied Linguistics and the Croatian Association of Teachers of English. One of the authors of the English textbook Footsteps 1 by Školska knjiga.
List of publications (CROSBI link):	CROSBI Ivana Marinić

Members of Department:

Mirna Erk, Assistant Professor, Ph.D.

Name and suranme	Mirna Erk, Ph.D.
Position	Assistant Professor
E-mail	merk@foozos.hr
Office	61
Research interests	Second language acquisition, socio-cognitive approach to SLA, the age factor, language input and interaction.
	Mirna Erk completed her studies in English and German language and literature in Osijek (Faculty of Pedagogy, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek) in 1995. She received her doctoral degree at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, in 2013. Currently she works as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education in Osijek (previously the Teacher Training College in Osijek, i.e., the Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek). Prior to 2020, Mirna Erk worked as a lecturer (teaching-oriented track) and her professional work included writing area expert papers, training of foreign language teachers through teacher workshops, continuous professional development, and organizing summer schools and lectures by local and foreign experts on ELT (as a component of her work for the Croatian Association of English Teachers – Osijek branch). In October 2020, she switched to tenure-oriented track and now leads courses in Theories of Language Learning and Acquisition, Early English Language Learning, English Language Teaching and Teaching Practicum, and English for Specific Purposes. Fifteen graduate theses have been prepared under her mentorship. Dr. Erk has participated in four projects, including two international research projects. She presented at nearly thirty international conferences, three times as an invited speaker. She publishes research, review and area expert papers on topics related to the age factor in foreign language acquisition, and conditions that lead to high(er) levels of language proficiency for Croatian EFL learners, with an emphasis on external factors related to foreign language development.
List of publications (CROSBI link):	CROSBI Mirna Erk

Darija Kuharić, Assistant Professor, Ph.D.

Ivana Moritz, Assistant Professor, Ph.D.

Zvjezdana Penava Brekalo, Assistant Professor, Ph.D.

Ksenija Benčina, Senior English Language Instructor, Ph.D.

Sara Ćavar, Assistant

Ivan Včev, Assistant

Željka Starčević, stručna suradnica

About the Department

The Department of English and German studies was established on October 1, 2019. The scientific and research interests of the members of the Department are in the field of language, literature, media culture, early learning and teaching of English and German. The teaching area of the Department's teachers includes linguistic, literary and methodical courses in English and German at all study programs of the Faculty of Education. The members of the Department participate in updating the existing and designing new courses in the mentioned fields, and have authored numerous papers in international journals, as well as participated in a number of scientific and professional conferences, and have been involved in several projects. It is necessary to point out numerous activities of the members of the Department in the field of popularization of science at the Science Festival.

The members of the Department of English and German Studies actively participate in the organization of the International Scientific Conference Child and Language Today, which is held every two years and is attended by scholars from the country and abroad, and results in domestic and foreign publications.

The Department has seven members.

Name and surname	Ivana Moritz, Ph.D.
Position	Assistant professor
E-mail	imoritz@foozos.hr, moritz.ivana@gmail.com
Office:	53
Research interests:	cognitive linguistics, English phraseology
	She finished primary and secondary school in Osijek. In 1999, she graduated from the Faculty of Pedagogy in Osijek, earning the title of English and German language and literature teacher. In the academic years 2006/2007 she enrolled in the Postgraduate University Studies of Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strrossmayer University in Osijek. She received her PhD humanities, in the field of philology in April 2015 by defending the paper Cognitive Analysis of Euphemisms in Political Discourse in. She worked in several primary and secondary schools in Osijek as an English and German language teacher and spent a school year in Rydal Penrhos School in Colwyn Bay, Wales, as an assistant at their EFL department. Since June 1, 2007, she has been working as a assistant, and later as a senior assistant at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek (today's Faculty of Education). In June 2019, she became an assistant professor, and in October of the same year, the head of the new Department of English and German Studies at the Faculty of Education. Since October 2020, she has been the Vice-Dean for Science. She teaches several courses: English Language Grammar 1, English Language Grammar 2, English Language Practice 3, English Language 3 and English Language 1. She participates in international and domestic scientific and professional conferences in the field of linguistics, with emphasis on the study of cognitive linguistics and phraseology of the English language, and publishes papers from the same fields in domestic and foreign publications.
List of publications (CROSBI link):	CROSBI Ivana Moritz

Name and surname	Sara Ćavar
Position	Assistant
e-mail	scavar2@foozos.hr
Broj ureda	38
Research interests	Cognitive linguistics
	She completed primary and secondary school (Jesuit Classical Gymnasium) in Osijek. In 2022 she graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek) defending the thesis titled Semiotic Analysis of Advertisements in 19th and 20th-century German Language Osijek Newspapers. She has worked as a German and English language teacher in several secondary schools in Osijek. In 2023 she started working as an assistant at the Department of philology of the Faculty of Education in Osijek. She participates at international scientific linguistics conferences.
List of publications (CROSBI link):

Name and surname	Ivan Včev
Position	Assistant
e-mail	ivcev@foozos.hr, ivan.vcev@yahoo.com
Broj ureda	27
Research interests	Philosophy of education, Bioethics
	Ivan Včev was born in Osijek on January 25^th 1994. He attended St. Anne Primary School and Jesuit Classical Gymnasium in his hometown. At the University in Zadar, he completed his graduate studies in Philosophy and English. At the Faculty of Educational Sciences, he participates in the teaching of the following courses: Philosophy of Education, Bioethics and Bioethics in Educational Rehabilitation.
List of publications (CROSBI link):	CROSBI Ivan Včev

Name and surname	Željka Starčević
Title	Associate
e-mail	zstarcevic@foozos.hr
Office number	47
Research interests	Acquisition of foreign languages
About the teacher	She graduated from the former Faculty of Education, now the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, and obtained an MA degree in the English and German language and literature. As a teacher mentor, she taught in various primary and secondary schools and received multiple awards from the Ministry of Science and Education (MSE). During the pandemic, she actively contributed as a member of the MSE Working Group, preparing and publishing video lessons. She also took on the role of Head of the County Teachers Professional Development Council for the German language. Her teaching scenarios gained recognition on the international platform Europeana and have been implemented by English language teachers locally and internationally. Since April 2021, she has been working at the Faculty of Education as an associate within the Department of English and German Studies, teaching English and engaging in international and domestic conferences. At the home institution, she is a member of journal editorial boards (Life and School, Pannoniana) and various conference organizing committees.
List of publications (CROSBI link)

Name and surname	Zvjezdana Penava Brekalo, Ph.D.
Position	Assistant professor
E-mail	zpenavabrekalo@foozos.hr
Research interests
	Zvjezdana Penava Brekalo graduated from the Faculty of Education in Osijek in 1990, becoming an English and German teacher. 1990-1995 she lived and worked in Vienna and during the Homeland War she was engaged at the Pädagogisches Institut der Stadt Wien, on the Project for the Admission and Integration of Refugee Children in the Vienna School System, functioning as a coordinator at preparing teaching materials for bilingual literacy classes, and later on she herself was teaching the bilingual literacy. Consequently, her Kommentar zum Lehrplan der Volkschule was published in Vienna, 1995. In the same year she moved to Toronto for further professonal and language experience. She returned to Croatia in 1998 and taught English and German at II. gimnazija Osijek till April 2020. Having been promoted to a teacher-advisor, from 2014 till 2020 she was the head of the County Council of English Teachers. 2002-2005 she had also taught German courses at the Teacher Training College. In 2008 she earned her master’s degree in Personal Marketing at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek. In 2012 she got her PhD from the Faculty of Economics and Tourism »Dr. Mijo Mirković », at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, having defended her doctoral thesis titled The Conceptualization of Education for Personal Marketing in Higher Business Education. Since May 2020, she has been employed at the Faculty of Educational Sciences and she teaches the following courses: Integrated Teaching, Methodology of Education, Personal Marketing of Teachers, Action Research in Early and Preschool Education.
List of publications (CROSBI link):	CROSBI Zvjezdana Penava Brekalo

Name and surname	Ksenija Benčin, Ph.D.
Position	Senior English language instructor
E-mail	kbencina@foozos.hr
Office	61
Research interests	Linguistics
	She has been employed at the Faculty of Education since 2008 and works as a senior English language instructor. She teaches the following courses: English language I, English language practice I, II and V and English speaking practice III and IV. In 2010, 2014 and 2016 she organized trips for the students of year 4 and 5 at to the UK. In 2017 she was a member of the Organising Committee of annual ATEE Conference (Association for Teacher Education Europe) Changing Perspectives and Approaches in Contemporary Teaching in Dubrovnik in October 2017. She is a PhD student of Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek and a member of HUPE (Croatian Association of Teachers of English).
List of publications (CROSBI link):