Sara Pashan has studied German and Psychology at the University of British Columbia and did a semester abroad at the Freie Universität Berlin during her time as a Graduate Student here in CENES. Sara is also a certified English language instructor and completed her CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) by Cambridge English in 2014. She has also taught at a high school in Frankfurt, Germany while working as a foreign language assistant through the Pädagogische Austauschdienst. During her time abroad, she was also hired as a substitute teacher at the Helmholz Schule (Gymnasium) due to her extraordinary ability to communicate like a German native speaker and her great rapport with the teaching staff and students there.

Since 2015 Sara has been an instructor with CENES and teaches all of first and second year German language classes. Her name was recognized and included in a list of top 10% best instructors recognized by the Dean in the Faculty of Arts here at UBC after only a year of being hired by the department.

Currently, Sara is teaching German 100 and 200 and is also part of a few committees dedicated to the renewal of the German Studies Curriculum and another that focuses on updated cultural information and aspects of Diversity throughout the German speaking countries, which has become part of the curriculum taught in the German Language Program here at CENES.

In addition to working on teaching diverse aspects of German culture in her German language classes, Sara’s current research interests expand to German cinema and film, as well as migrant and feminist studies. Sara’s masters thesis focused on analyzing “the gaze” between the two main characters from Leontine Sagan’s 1931 film, Mädchen in Uniform, through a psychoanalytic approach along with its various themes and power structures.

Faculty of Graduate Studies Tuition Award (September 2013 – January 2014)

Faculty of Graduate Studies Tuition Award (September 2012 – April 2013)

Go Global Travel Award (April 2012 – August 2012)

Faculty of Graduate Studies Tuition Award (September 2011 – April 2012)

Third Prize in German Writing Contest by the Consulate of Germany in Vancouver (awarded in April 2003)

Sara’s M.A. in German Studies Research Thesis was supervised by Dr. Steven Taubeneck in 2013.