Nathalie Topaj

Nathalie Topaj is an associated researcher in Research Area 2 'Language Development and Multilingualism' at the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin and coordinator of the Berlin Interdisciplinary Network for Multilingualism (BIVEM). Her work focuses on bilingual language acquisition, narrative comprehension, and developing language support tools for multilingual children and educators.

• Education:
  • PhD in Linguistics (Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
  • M.A. in English Studies and Romance Studies (Universität Mannheim)
  • B.A. in French/English Linguistics and Philosophy (University of Haifa)
• Research Interests: Bilingual language acquisition, narrative macrostructure (goals/internal states), lexicon development in heritage speakers, and literacy instruction for multilingual children. She specializes in creating assessment instruments like the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) and language proficiency tests for Russian-German bilinguals.
• Key Publications: Her 2023 study in the International Journal of Bilingualism examines predictors of reading comprehension in Russian-German children, while her 2021 work in Languages tracks longitudinal lexicon development in heritage speakers.
• Teaching: Has taught courses on heritage language structures and bilingual child development at institutions including Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and University of Wroclaw.
• Projects: Coordinates BIVEM, evaluates the 'Multilingual School' quality seal, and develops training modules for educators.