The special features of teaching include small working groups that enable individual support for students and good exchange between students and lecturers, regular interdisciplinary courses as well as intensive practical language training by native-speaker lecturers featuring, among other things, practical courses (for example, on topics in journalism, intercultural and business communication or business languages).

The department works with numerous partner universities in Europe, Africa and Latin America, all with personal contacts on site. Students also receive professional support in planning their period abroad (selecting the university, application process etc.), in the search for suitable internships abroad, and in submitting applications in an international context. In addition, exchanges take place at lecturer level, for example via guest lectureships within the Erasmus+ framework.

The university library is very well stocked; A large number of books can be accessed quickly, waiting times are short and there is an interlibrary loan service. There are numerous subject-specific databases in place; Electronic publications and full-text journals are increasingly integrated into the library programme. For individual as well as extracurricular promotion of foreign language skills, a media laboratory and a virtual shelf, available via the language centre, can be used, with collections of links for online language acquisition.

Current research projects (selection): ‘Imaginarration’: Narrating pictures; First annotated German-language complete edition of ‘ibaldone di pensieri’by G. Leopardi; A project on digitalisation and cultural memory in Latin America. In addition, there are areas of research focus on Digital Romance Linguistics (as part of the KU’s Research Cluster on Digitalisation), on research on Latin America (ZILAS), poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries (including as part of Forum Poesia) as well as in aspects of literary, cultural and media didactics, specifically on intercultural learning.

Students can also select specific modules in the Studium.Pro field (particularly Pro Beruf).

Students in the field of teaching have the option of additionally obtaining a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree within the framework of the LehramtPlus model. Another special feature are the intensive and supplementary courses in Italian and Spanish, which allow students to commence studies even without prior knowledge. KU offers learning in a personal atmosphere, short distances on campus, an interdisciplinary range of courses, excellent supervision and support through numerous service offers, a large range of leisure sports activities and a worldwide network of around 300 partner universities.