Pirjo Harjanne

Pirjo HARJANNE (Ph.D., MA) is Adjunct Professor of and University Lecturer in Foreign Language Education and Principal Investigator, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki. She is a member of Teachers' Academy, University of Helsinki (Dec, 2014->). She has the qualifications necessary for a professorship in foreign language education according to the expert opinions at Jyväskylä University, 2011 and Turku University, 2014. She is a subject teacher education specialist with several responsibilities in the Department’s developmental work. Her specialities include foreign language teaching, studying and learning, communicative language teaching and practice, oral proficiency, language and intercultural communication, subject teachers’ research seminars, as well as subject-didactical and methodological lectures.

 She has contributed to international projects (e.g., WebCEF, HELST, CEFcult. MASTS) as Coordinator and Partner and to national ICT-focused projects (e.g., Kielet). She is currently Director and Principal Investigator of the national and international KIELO Project, focusing on FL teaching, studying and learning in classrooms. She has attended national and international scientific conferences regularly to present her research. She planned and coordinated a student exchange programme between Helsinki University and Utrecht University. She is also an active in-service teacher educator.

Recently, she has worked as an invited researcher at Stockholm University, Department of Language Education, 2013-2014. She has visited Sweden, Belgium and the Czech Republic within Teacher or Researcher Exchange Programmes.

Her publications (over 60) cover foreign language teaching, studying and learning (TSL), communicative language teaching and practice, oral language proficiency, study strategies, transdisciplinary affordances, a subject teacher’s path to becoming a researcher, research methodology, methodological reality, social media, and future teaching prospects. She has focused increasingly on combining theory and practice in teacher education and in her own teaching.