Native-speaking German lessons in non-German-speaking areas
Native-speaking German lessons in non-German-speaking areas are given to those children and adolescents of school age who speak German as their mother-tongue but live in a non-German-speaking area. Some of these are migrant children and some are offspring from German-speaking minorities who have been able to maintain their linguistic independence over a long period of time.
The total number of German native speakers (children and adults) living outside Germany , Austria , German-speaking Switzerland , Liechtenstein , Luxembourg , South Tyrol and the German-speaking community in Belgium is estimated at 15 million. A particularly large number of German native speakers live in France (1.2 million), the United States (1.1 million), Brazil (0.9 million), Canada (0.4 million) and South Africa (0.3– 0.5 million).
The majority of the schools that the affected children attend do not offer German lessons , so their German literacy is often a problem.
School and teaching forms
Various types of schooling and teaching can be used for native-speaking German lessons for children who grow up outside the German-speaking area. Public schools, where German native speakers can also receive German lessons in addition to national language lessons, are most likely to be found in regions where traditionally strong German-speaking minorities live, e.g. B. in Alsace .
Schools that - like the German schools abroad and the distance learning schools established in Germany - are funded by public funds from German-speaking countries, often address their offers primarily to potential returnees. German-speaking migrant children have the opportunity to acquire a school-leaving certificate recognized in their country of origin .
In many cases, German lessons are left to the initiative of the parents, who can then either employ private tutors or give their children home tuition themselves. Since there is no tradition of home schooling in German-speaking countries and the relevant didactics have not yet been developed, there is also a lack of teaching material that meets the special requirements of home schooling.
In cities where many German-speaking migrants live, private initiatives often lead to the establishment of German private schools that work either as general education schools or as Saturday schools - that is, as a supplement to the national language school.
Measures of the countries in the German-speaking area
Germany
Ministries of Education
In Germany, cultural sovereignty lies with the federal states . The education ministries of the federal states are therefore responsible for teaching German to German citizens in non-German-speaking countries. The initiatives of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research are limited to promoting German teaching for target groups in Germany.
German schools abroad
The Central Agency for Schools Abroad (ZfA) in the Federal Office of Administration oversees a number of German schools abroad that exist as private schools abroad and are funded by German public funds. The main task of these schools is to enable German immigrant children to acquire a school leaving certificate that is recognized in Germany.
In cooperation with the Central Office for Schools Abroad (ZfA), the Goethe Institute (GI), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Pedagogical Exchange Service (PAD) of the Conference of Ministers of Education , the Federal Foreign Office runs the initiative "Schools: Partners for the Future" ( PASCH). There are more than 1,700 schools worldwide that offer special German programs. The initiative is not aimed specifically at native German speakers, but primarily at schoolchildren who want to learn German as a foreign language.
Bundeswehr schools abroad
The Bundeswehr operates some schools abroad where the children receive native-speaking German lessons whose parents are posted abroad as members of the Bundeswehr. Three of these schools are in the United States, and one each in the Netherlands , Belgium , France and Italy .
Distance schools
In Germany there are three distance schools that can provide native-speaking German lessons to children abroad:
- The German Distance Learning School, founded in Wetzlar (Hessen) in 1971, offers distance learning courses for preschool and elementary school students up to grade 5. The facility employs 60 teachers and currently looks after almost 600 students in 139 countries.
- The Institute for Learning Systems (ILS) in Hamburg looks after students in grades 5–10 who can acquire a secondary or secondary school certificate here . Since the program was created in 1980, over 7,500 students have taken advantage of the offer. The ILS also offers correspondence courses to prepare for the Abitur , which must then be passed as an external Abitur in Germany.
- The Flex-Fernschule in Oberrimsingen (Baden-Württemberg) also looks after students in grades 5–10, but its offers are specially tailored to children and young people with learning problems who are promoted here according to a curative educational concept. The school is run by the Catholic Caritas .
All three distance learning schools are financed through tuition fees, the latter two also through state grants.
Austria
Austria oversees a small number of schools abroad, such as the St. Georgs-Kolleg Istanbul and the Instituto Austríaco Guatemalteco .
Distance schools that school German-speaking migrant children outside of the national borders do not currently exist in Austria. The Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture does not currently run any initiatives or programs to promote the language of Austrian migrant children in non-German-speaking countries.
Switzerland
In Switzerland , education is primarily a matter for the cantons ; a federal ministry of culture was never set up. The state runs some German schools in the non-German-speaking parts of the country (such as the German School in Geneva ), but also in other countries, e.g. For example the traditional Swiss School in Milan , the German-speaking School in Bangkok and the German Swiss International School in Accra ( Ghana ). A correspondence school that trains German-speaking migrant children abroad does not currently exist in Switzerland.
Situation in individual countries
United States
In the United States there were 1,382,613 native German speakers in 2000. According to an estimate by the US Census Authority, there were 1,135,999 in 2006, including around 170,000 school-age children.
In the USA there are five German schools abroad - the German School Boston , the German School New York , the German School Washington ( Washington, DC ), the German School Portland (Oregon) and the German International School Silicon Valley ( Santa Clara ) a total of around 1,000 German-speaking students are taught.
There are also a number of other German private schools, such as the German School of Atlanta or the German American International School in Menlo Park , but even these only reach a very small proportion of the German-speaking migrant children living across the country. The Bundeswehr operates three German schools in the USA: the German School El Paso , the German School Alamogordo and the German School Sheppard .
The ZdA and the Goethe-Institut oversee a few other schools in the USA, which, however, do not offer native German lessons, but teach German as a foreign language. In the rest of the United States' school system , German is taught as a foreign language from high school - that is, grades 9–12 - if a program is available. This is the case at 38% of all public high schools.
Sweden
In Sweden, all children are given mother tongue tuition if there are at least five students in the municipality who speak the language on a daily basis, have a basic knowledge of the language and want to have mother tongue tuition, provided there is a teacher. Mother tongue instruction is a school subject, it is graded accordingly and absenteeism is recorded, but it is usually outside of regular school hours. One hour a week is common, but it can also be shorter.
Special problems of the target group
The majority of the children of German-speaking migrants grow up multilingual , especially if a different language is spoken in kindergarten and school than at home, or if the parents communicate in the national language because one of them does not speak German. The more successfully the children are integrated into a non-German-speaking social environment (school, peers), the more often it happens that they speak bad German - even if the parents only speak German at home. In this case, German lessons - similar to those of migrant children in Germany - not only have to teach reading and writing, but also e.g. B. also grammar and vocabulary development can be done.
On the other hand, these children are already too advanced in their German language development to benefit from the foreign language German lessons that are offered at schools in many countries. This is all the more true for countries such as B. the USA, where foreign language teaching is only given in the upper grades.
Since bilingual schools are rarely available, German-speaking children who grow up in non-German areas usually have little time for German lessons. In most countries, they are subject to compulsory education or schooling and spend a large part of the day at school, where the workload and homework load is often so significant that additional schooling can hardly be expected.
Notes and individual references
- ↑ L'enseignement de l'allemand à l'école élémentaire en Alsace
- ↑ This includes a funding priority “Literacy / Basic Education for Adults” ( website ) and a funding program for non-German-speaking migrant children ( website ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. )
- ↑ PASCH official website
- ↑ Foreign schools of the Bundeswehr ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Website of the German Distance Learning School
- ↑ Deutsche Fernschule ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; About the DF
- ^ Website of the ILS
- ↑ Abitur
- ^ Website of the Flex Distance School
- ↑ The most important distance learning school in Austria is the Humboldt Fernlehr Institut (HFL), which u. a. Offers courses to prepare for the secondary school leaving certificate and the Matura. However, these courses are aimed at adults. HFL website ( Memento of the original from January 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ BMUKK website
- ↑ Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000 (pdf; 493 kB); 78.0% of them spoke English “very good”, 15.9% “good”, 5.8% “not good” and 0.3% “not at all”.
- ↑ Languages Spoken at Home in United States per US Census Bureau Data ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Children under 5 are not included in this statistic.
- ↑ Schools in the United States Website of the Federal Administration Office, Central Agency for Schools Abroad
- ↑ partner schools
- ↑ The Big Slump ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Mother tongue lessons . Retrieved October 11, 2016 .
