Learnings & unlearnings in the ASA Academia project #1107 – by Eli Attipoe
Greetings to everyone once again!
It is a pleasure to be sharing with you my ASA Academia journey at the University of Education (PHKA) in Karlsruhe, Germany. I am Eli Attipoe from Ghana and I spent 3 months at the PHKA in the summer semester 2025 as part of the German-Ghanaian university cooperation project ASA Academia global format project #1107.
In my last blog article I wrote about my first impression about Germany in terms of social life, interactions with people, places I got the opportunity to visit, and my general experiences that I had while I was in Germany last summer.
This new article will capture my whole experience and academic life at the university during my ASA Academia project. In this project, academic subjects played a big role for me. I got the opportunity to link my academics with personal and social life. I always say that going to Germany for a semester was an academic enlightenment for me because it exposed me to a different system of education and world as a whole, which made me realise that there is more than one system and more than one world.
I will share with you some of the things I got exposed to which have become part of me. Also, I will be sharing certain ideologies and perspectives which I, as an individual, have rejected (or “unlearnt”) due to the exposure I have had during the course of this project.
During my semester at the PHKA I had the opportunity to attend a number of courses, which were part of my highlights during my stay in Germany. I took 4 courses in total, and in my previous article I already elaborated on one of them, “Decoloniality Praxis”, as this was the one compulsory course every ASA participant had to partake.
Table of contents
- Seminar on Post-Colonial Theories and Literatures
- Seminar on Global Englishes, Global Citizenship Education & Teaching International English
- Seminar on World Dance Calling
- Workshop on Power Imbalaces by Caesar James Mbotana
- Conclusion and anticipation
Seminar on Post-Colonial Theories and Literatures
The next course I enrolled in was “Postcolonial Theories and Literatures”, which was amazing and was offered by Professor Isabel Martin. I decided to enrol in this course because of my love for literature. With this course, I saw it as a Third Space to negotiate and shape certain cultures and also inform people who have no idea about the impact of Colonialism. The course came with critical reading and analysis of certain texts and poems from anglophone writers from different parts of the world. This boosted my interest for the course because I would get to hear different perspectives relating to the world and Colonialism as well.
Before I go into certain texts I was exposed to in the class which I loved, I must say I was impressed by Professor Martin’s method of teaching in class. Prof Isabel mostly used the learner-centered way of teaching, which made learning more participatory and engaging. I realized students could share views and experiences they have had that are related to the topic presented in the respective sessions. For instance, there was a presentation on Feminism and after the presentation we had discussions in smaller groups of 5, where some students shared some experiences their parents, specifically their mothers and grandmothers, had had during their early years. They continued discussing how without the waves of Feminism transcending to recent times they would not enjoy some privileges they are enjoying in recent times.
This helped me connect to some books like Second Class Citizen by the Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, where women were mostly seen as second-class citizens and could not enjoy the basic rights we have today like education, body autonomy, or the right of freely expressing themselves. This also led me to connect and analyze the rights of females over the years in my country (which I believe my country has a long way to go in terms of women empowerment). The discussion was fruitful and left a mark on me, I must say. This helped in getting to hear the perspectives of students from diverse backgrounds. The class was a Master’s class but then due to Prof. Martin’s guidance it made it easier for me – a Bachelor student – to blend in.
Other texts that really inspired me in this class were Checking Out Me History by John Agard, Dictionary Black (Trap) by Sista Rootz, Beyond the Pale by Rudyard Kipling and The Headstrong Historian by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. These texts have helped me in so many ways such as helping me assess how Western education was brought to us to “civilize” us, never respecting the fact that we had our own ways of living, doing, and knowing before all this was suddenly forcibly changed. I will explain their effects on me more in the following paragraphs.
These texts showed me how to hold pride in my identity as an African because, taking the short story by Chimamanda Ngozi, for example, it made me aware on how we were inculcated to think that everything we had or did – which was normal life to us – was “inferior”. One line in Kipling’s notorious poem The White Man’s Burden (1888), “half child, half devil”, created this picture of immaturity of Africans which was how the colonizers saw us. This made me realize how little knowledge the colonisers had of Africans and hence depicted them in their own perspective, which was foul.
Moving on, this led me to make a deep reflection, which led me to recognize my African identity and striving to uphold it more. I have continued to do this by listening to podcasts which relate to issues of Neocolonialism and reading more articles to be abreast with more African civilization and current issues facing the continent. A few podcasts I have listened to so far that I can share are Contours of Colonialism: Decoding Postcolonial Worlds (Apple) and Confronting Hierarchies (Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut, Spotify).
It has helped change certain prejudices, preconceptions and stereotypes I had about certain groups of people back home, but also people from somewhere else, for instance the Middle East. I had myself been exposed to and uncritical of detrimental images depicted by the media (especially movies and news reports), e.g. “terrorists”. I am glad I could recognize the lens I was looking through and repel this misconception. I now see this as a play of power.
Another example is how I used to think that most Carribeans’ English was “bad” and they made too many errors, but after reading Sista Rootz’s and John Agard’s poems (and listening to his recital) I began to see the beauty in their language. It was imposed on them to speak the colonial tongue for communication, which led to this merger (or “distortion” as I originally saw it), a new Creole language and manner of speaking foregrounding origins. Now I can boldly say that it was also a form of resistance against colonial rules and culture which tried to diminish their whole existence.
I had the opportunity to give a presentation with Ms Juliette Esposito, a Master’s student in the “Postcolonial Theories & Literatures” class (and author on this blog). The presentation I prepared with Juliette was about introducing some Postcolonial theories and two poems, The White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling (1888) and Checking Out Me History (2007) by John Agard. Some of the theories I encountered still hold me to this day and have given me the opportunity to explore more Postcolonial theories. I also loved the feedback session after our seminar session with Miss Martin because she made me assess myself first and only later added her feedback. I am really grateful to her for this opportunity and space to learn.
Seminar on Global Englishes, Global Citizenship Education & Teaching International English
“Global Englishes, Global Citizenship Education & Teaching International English”, another wonderful course I took, has equipped me with skills like being able to look for secondary literature using the Database MLA (Modern Languages Association) or the JSTOR library. This undergraduate course was facilitated by Prof Isabel Martin and in the course of the seminar I was able to understand Critical Global Citizenship. It is an approach to understanding global issues that goes beyond simply raising awareness to actively critiquing existing global systems, power structures, and inequalities, and to use your positionality for action. It formulates the need to not only learn about and interact well with other people from different contexts, but also take responsibility as you become concerned about their lives and day-to-day activities and challenges. It is very important that everyone does that. I got the understanding that when a global issue is happening in a particular region which is not close to you, it does not mean you should neglect it or not reflect and talk about it, because you need to be concerned because in one way or another we are all concerned and are/will be affected.
Many of these (global) issues are long-term effects of Colonialism and remaining power structures and imbalances.
Realising what “Critical Global Citizenship” means is important for teachers. It is my job to draw attention to this by including issues relating to injustices, inequality (and many more that are visible around us and beyond) in my lessons. Hence, as individuals living in this globalized world you need to develop a sense of responsibility for one another and most importantly create awareness as well. Since this approach empowered me during the seminar, I believe it can empower my students as well.
In this particular seminar, too, we had a lot of interactive small and large discussions with meaningful contributions from most of the students. We did activities each week to consolidate or complicate the student-led presentations. These were prepared in individual consultations with the course leader in advance. The topics were “ELT in Germany vs. Global Englishes”, “North-South power imbalances”, “Postmethod pedagogy”, “Teaching the Sustainable Development Goals”, “Women and education”, “Conflict management in education”, “The Western Episteme vs. Southern Epistemologies”, “Lao culture and education”, “Stereotypes, prejudice, racism, xenophobia”, and “Decolonise Your Mind”. On top, I was given the opportunity to share my Ghanaian perspectives on some of these topics, e.g. “Stereotypes”, which I find rampant also here in Ghana. Even if this may be seen as sarcastic banter, we may forget the dangers and divisions it can lead to over time.
Concepts such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are also a big foundation for our ASA Academia project. In one seminar session we got to pick one SDG for a mini-presentation as a group and relate it to an issue in our various countries. My group worked on SDG #16 Peace & Justice and Strong Institutions. We ended up choosing Ghana as our sample. We explored how there is the need for a reduction in corruption, improving justice accessibility and ensuring of equal participation (mostly for maginalized groups). The impressive contributions and discussions which went on in this seminar during the whole semester were spectacular for me.
I got to know a lot about the Lao culture and alphabet as well, thanks to Ms Chindavone‘s and Ms Phennapha‘s contribution. Their session made realize the beauty in language.
Seminar on “World Dance Calling”
The last course I took at the PHKA which was exciting and fun was the World Dance Calling seminar, which uses Embodied Cognition for both embodied learning of English vocabulary and social learning (cooperation). In this course English calls, i.e. imperatives of verbs of movement and adverbs of place/direction/frequency etc., are used to teach simple English language chunks through concordant movements (dancing). Again, I got the opportunity to share, so I showed the Kpanlogo dance from my region in Ghana, which is predominantly performed by the Ga-Adangbe tribe, in class, and then also to some 60 guests at the “Open House” World Dance party.
Here are some impressions from the class if you want to see for yourself: IMG_5921, IMG_5920, IMG_5919, IMG_5918(1), IMG_5923
And from the “Open House” evening:
In the context of this seminar, Miss Martin took me and a few others to Landau for Caller Andreas‘ own “Open House” Dance evening. I had a shock when I went in there and I saw energetic older folks in their 60’s and above who were dancing so energetically and never got tired and wanted more. I also had the opportunity to share my Ghanaian Kpanlogo dance with them and I was happy how content and engaged they all were with it.
The seminar served as a space where students could share some dance forms from their home countries: we taught each other dance formation from Laos, Greece, Italy, and Ghana. This brought to light the power of dance in uniting people from different parts of the globe, across ages and interests.
The seminar also offers a break from more traditional methods of teaching English by offering an engaging way of teaching simple English phrases based on movement and action-oriented learning. The Total Physical Response (TPR) combined with music and dance steps improves the engagement of learners, as students experienced when they went to call at local schools (and as the growing body of research on Embodied Learning shows). One peculiar thing I have learnt here is Professor Martin’s teaching methods: they are so amazing and inclusive, no one is left out of the classroom, every single individual is involved and their voices are being heard.
Workshop on Power imbalaces by Caesar James Mbotana
Furthermore, I attended several workshops here in Germany such as Caesar James Mbotana’s workshop on “North-South Power Imbalances” in Ms Martin’s “Decoloniality Praxis” seminar. This workshop led me to better understand my culture and to never let it go. It was a bit challenging at the beginning because a lot of things were said which shocked me in the sense that I had not been critically exposed to how certain institutions in education were (still) so Eurocentric, which means you have to match that standard to succeed in the system. Hence, I believe Ghanaian institutions also have a lot of reviewing to do if critical thinkers are expected to shape the future of education.
I got to understand how due to some power some nations possessed during Colonialism, they enforced certain systems on other nations which tarnished their cultures or, worse, make them look inferior. An example is myself during my young age: I got the impression from things I read on the Internet and even in books that all the best things that can make people comfortable come from the West. Hence, everything that comes from the South or East is perceived as inferior. But then, after making certain reflections, I got to understand how some things were not in my control because I was young and vulnerable and the impact of Colonialism was huge on me.
For instance, I used to believe that the right hairstyle for everyone should be the style of the West but then after further readings about the texture, cultural significance of hair and hairstyles I realized how wrong I was at the beginning. This ideology came about due to how most cartoon characters were presented and also how most of the women in my society growing up had tried to change the texture of their hair. This was due to the issue of who was preaching such information and whose interests it was supposed to serve. I can boldly say I have found myself and my true identity as an African through all these un-/learnings here, and I will continue to take pride in it.
These experiences I had at the University of Education Karlsruhe have not only been just a mere experience. They have shaped my way of seeing the world. For example, now, I do not just read a book or watch a movie and just take it as such. I must try to form a deeper meaning and understanding by assessing the perspectives they are/were being written from, are shown in it and how they are represented. Furthermore, this experience has shaped my view about the environment, mostly what’s making it improve and what’s degrading it (both the physical and social part of it).
I will finish by not finishing: let me catch up with my tandem-partner Sara and in our next article we will feature our findings based on the two school lessons that we taught in the context of the “Deoloniality Praxis” seminar on the “Representation and assumptions about Africa in English textbooks”.
I hope you will enjoy hearing from us again.
Text by Eli Attipoe
Photos (private) by Isabel Martin & Peter Michael Hintz
Photos (authors) from Wikimedia Free Commons
Wikipedia. 2025. File: IMG John Agard.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IMG_John_Agard.jpg. Accessed 18.06.2026.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported license.
Wikipedia. File:Rudyard Kipling, by Elliott & Fry (cropped 2).jpg. Author: Bonhams. Early 20th c.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rudyard_Kipling,_by_Elliott_%26_Fry_(cropped_2).jpg. Accessed 18.06.2026. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Wikipedia. 2015. File: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2015).png. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chimamanda_Ngozi_Adichie_(2015).png. Accessed 18.06.2026. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
References
Andreotti, V. 2006. Soft versus critical global citizenship education. Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, 3(1), 40–51.
Streitwieser, B., & Light, G. 2016. Student conceptions of international experience in the development of global citizenship: A five-institution study. Journal of College Student Development, 57(7), 877–892.
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