Conditions for participation – Language Courses for Students

The courses and workshops offered during the semester as well as the mandatory placement tests are aimed at officially enrolled students and exchange students of TH Köln.

Visiting students, guest students, employees, participants in preparatory courses and students from other universities are not allowed to attend. There are special courses available for employees and study applicants.

Faculty specific language modules are limited to students of the respective faculties. Places left vacant can occasionally be assigned to interested people from other faculties. 

Participation in the language courses and workshops is free of charge. In some courses participants have to purchase a textbook at their own expense.

You may only register for courses that correspond to your level. Therefore, taking the placement test is a prerequisite for participating in courses at the Language Learning Center. Placement tests are offered at the beginning of each semester.

You do not have to take a placement test if you

• want to register for one of our courses A1.1 Chinese, A1 German as a Foreign Language, A1.1 German Sign Language, A1 French, A1 Italian, A1 Swedish or A1 Spanish and have no prior knowledge of these languages.
• have done a placement test at the Language Learning Center in the preceding semester.
• have successfully completed a language course at the Language Learning Center within the past two years.
• can submit a certificate as proof that you have passed a language examination on a specified CEFR-level within the past two years. A scan of this certificate has to be sent to sprachlernzentrum@th-koeln.de before the date of the first placement test. Please note that school-leaving certificates / high school diplomas such as the German ‘Abitur’ or ‘Fachabitur’ cannot be accepted as certification of a language level.

Registering for a language course is only possible online during the registration period. In order to sign up, please choose your desired course and fill in the online registration form. Please check the correct spelling of your name and your email address and pay attention to the use of capital letters. You may only register for those language courses that you were assigned to based on your placement test result.

After submitting your registration, you will receive an automatic confirmation email. Please note: This confirmation is not an automatic binding acceptance for a course place.

Multiple registrations for parallel courses are not permitted. Students who register for several courses for the same language and level are automatically assigned to the course with the largest number of available places. All further registrations will be deleted.

The number of places in the courses and workshops offered by the Language Learning Center is limited. The number of participants admitted to a particular course or workshop can be found on the course description. After the deadline for registration has expired, we will inform you via email if you have been assigned a place in the course.

There is no legal claim to admission even if attending courses at the Language Learning Center should be mandatory in a certain degree program.

Should there be more registrations than course places, places will first be allocated to students who have been on the waiting list for a course or a workshop in the respective language in the past. The remaining course places will then be awarded in a lottery procedure.

Students who do not receive a course place at first will be added to the waiting list. As soon as course places become available, we will inform you via email. In this case, you can be admitted to the course provided you are willing to make up for the missed classes by yourself.

It is only possible to move up from the waiting list if the number of course units that have already taken place has not yet exceeded the maximum number of units that may be missed. Moving up from the waiting list is only possible until the end of the third week of the semester.

If you are no longer interested in participating in the course, please deregister from the waiting list by using our deregistration form. Under “reason for deregistration” please state “Deregistration from waiting list”

Participants who no longer wish to attend their course have to deregister so that other students can move up from the waiting list. In order to deregister, please use the deregistration form on our website.

Students who do not appear without any prior notice at the beginning of the course or cancel the course without deregistration will be blocked for the following semester for all courses of the Language Learning Center. Please note: It is not sufficient to only inform the lecturer about the course cancellation.

If you cannot attend the first lecture, please send an email to sprachlernzentrum@th-koeln.de mentioning your name and your course number. Participants who do not attend the first lecture without informing the Language Learning Center via email will lose their right to attend the course.

Active and constructive participation is the basic prerequisite for your individual learning success and for the success of our courses for all participants. This includes independent preparation and follow-up of the course meetings as well as regular and punctual attendance.

Regular active participation is a prerequisite for admission to the final exam and for the issue of a certificate. Please notice the maximum absence time for the respective course. You will find this information in the course outline which you receive after admission to a course.

Once you have registered for a module and have received a place confirmation, you are also registered for the module exam. An additional registration for the exam via PSSO is not required.

The work in our modules must be completed independently, without unauthorized assistance and without using non-permissible resources. Assistance from other persons and the use of AI applications and translation tools without their use being explicitly permitted in the task instructions are considered unauthorized assistance. In addition, copying content from the internet, e.g. using "copy and paste", without giving credit is considered using non-permissible resources. Sources from which content has been taken or quoted must be cited correctly and consistently in accordance with the academic standards of the university.

The Language Learning Center reserves the right to exclude participants who disturb or endanger the course from further participation.

Upon successful completion, participants will receive a graded certificate stating the level and scope of the course as well as the number of ECTS credits. A certificate can only be issued if the maximum absence time has not been exceeded and if each component has been marked 4,0 or higher.

Students who wish to have the ECTS credits added to their records must submit a request to the Office of Student and Examination Services. We recommend you to ensure in advance (i.e. before the start of the semester) that the ECTS awarded on the certificate can be credited to your studies. The Language Learning Center cannot provide binding information. 

Exception: Exchange students are automatically credited with the ECTS points of the modules in German as a Foreign Language.

Language courses are usually only carried out with a minimum registration of eight people. The Language Learning Center reserves the right to cancel courses if the intended number of participants is not reached.

The Language Learning Center reserves the right to engage a substitute teacher, should the designated teacher be unavailable at short notice. In exceptional cases the Language Learning Center reserves the right to change course dates and venues.