The curriculum for grammar and comprehensive schools in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) explicitly calls for greater awareness of English varieties in teacher training. This includes the ability of future teachers to embed different varieties of English into their lessons. Especially for university teaching, however, hardly any suitable materials are currently available.
For this reason, researchers at the Universities of Paderborn, Bielefeld and Münster are developing innovative teaching and learning materials on varieties of English using digital media. The focus of the joint project Authentic Englishes.nrw is on the three areas of competence that are essential for future teachers with regard to the core curriculum in schools and that promote their knowledge of varieties in general: 'Understand', 'Describe' and ‘Teach’.