Polish lessons in Germany

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The teaching of Polish in general schools in Germany is of little importance in numerical terms. By far the most frequently taught foreign languages in Germany are English , French , Latin and Spanish .

In the context of German-Polish relations , figures have only been collected about Polish lessons in Germany since 1991. Classes are held in most of North Rhine-Westphalia and especially in border towns of the three of Poland bordering states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg and Saxony as well as in Berlin instead. It is almost always given by teachers of Polish origin. It was not until 2007 that the first candidate for teaching Polish did her exams at the University of Potsdam .

Comparable variables for Polish lessons in Germany are often Dutch , Danish or Czech . The benchmark for German lessons in Poland, on the other hand, is French; 1.8 million Polish students learn German, which makes it the second most important foreign language in Poland after English.

The perception of the “language of the neighbor” is therefore completely different in Poland and Germany.

history

Millennial German-Polish relations had hit rock bottom with the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Only after the end of the Second World War can one speak of a “dynamic of rapprochement” again , according to Basil Kerski .

The subject of Polish lessons in Germany and German lessons in Poland was at times very politically charged: as part of the Prussian Kulturkampf , Polish lessons were abolished in Upper Silesia in 1872 , and during the Third Reich the Gestapo slogan was there : “Whoever speaks Polish gets one in them Eat up. "

Little research has been done on the history of Polish teaching in Germany; little is known about it. It was possible to study Polish studies in Prussia at the University of Berlin since 1842 ; Significantly, the chair was not set up to provide Germans with knowledge of Poland, but to give Poles living in Prussia an opportunity to “perfect” their mother tongue.

Little research has also been done on the history of Polish lessons in the GDR .

present

Political and social framework

The German-Polish neighborhood agreement was signed in 1991. In Article 25 of the treaty, both sides undertake to “give all interested persons comprehensive access to the language and culture of the other country”. The Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation was also created .

After that, a few schools introduced Polish as a second or third foreign language. In practice, little has changed outside of the border area since then.

In Germany, the Polish side has three Polish Institutes in Berlin, Leipzig and Düsseldorf , but focuses less on language learning than on cultural mediation. This is in clear contrast to the appearance of other institutes, the Confucius Institute , the Goethe Institute or the Institut français in the respective foreign countries. Occasionally, “trial days” are offered on the initiative of lecturers and students at a university.

In 1991 the German-Polish Youth Office was also established . The number of encounters between German and Polish teachers and students has increased sharply since then.

Since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, there has been a greater demand for interpreters and translators. At the same time, however, university polonistics was being pushed back as a subject. According to the White Paper of the Commission of the European Communities, the European requirement is the standard for learning two foreign languages. European schools are funded.

Polish class today

In 2011, 8,245 students learned Polish at the school; that's about 0.1 percent of the German student body. The trend in school language learning in Germany corresponds to the European trend: the major lingua franca are learned; According to Eurostat , these are English, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

Lessons usually take place in schools in the immediate border area. It should strengthen the perspective of these regions; conversely, the argument in more distant regions is that the subject Polish “does not fit into the profile of the school”.

The four federal states near the Polish border form the focus for Polish lessons at general schools: In Saxony, for example, the Catholic Sankt-Benno-Gymnasium in Dresden , and the Augustum-Annen-Gymnasium in Görlitz , in Brandenburg the private Rahn boarding school in Neuzelle , in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for example the European School German-Polish Gymnasium Löcknitz and in Berlin the Gabriele-von-Bülow-Oberschule . The number of teachers available is limited: in Brandenburg in 2007, thirteen civil servant teachers were available.

There are only a few Polish teachers with a state examination, because the national curricula do not provide for regular Polish lessons; Teachers “tinker” their own materials. Foreign language assistants (mostly Polish students) work here.

Especially in Germany, but also elsewhere, teaching in the mother tongue plays an important role: Polonia in Germany has one to two million people and many children take part in voluntary working groups in order to ensure their identity.

Since the findings of learning research suggest language learning in kindergarten or elementary school , Polish has also been offered in border towns there for some time.

At the same time, there is often talk of lifelong learning and employees gain further professional and linguistic skills. For example, Polish is learned at private language schools, communal adult education centers , in private lessons or in holiday language courses in Poland. None of this is reflected in the official statistics quoted.

The teaching material gets better. The first textbook for grammar schools has been available since 2009, which was made possible by the German Poland Institute founded in 1980 .

Future job opportunities for employees with a good knowledge of Polish and intercultural competence arise at numerous companies as well as "local governments, chambers of industry and commerce, cultural institutions and sports facilities."

literature

  • Erika Worbs (Ed.): Witaj Polsko! , Universum, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-89869-239-7 (textbook).
  • Grit Mehlhorn (Ed.): Advertising strategies for Polish as a foreign language in German schools. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-487-14394-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statistics of the Federal Statistical Office , accessed on December 1, 2012
  2. ^ Report on foreign language teaching in Poland (PDF; 2.6 MB), accessed on December 22, 2014
  3. ↑ Information on the exhibition in Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau , accessed on January 28, 2012
  4. ↑ Kerski, Basil: The dynamics of rapprochement in German-Polish relations. Present and history of a neighborhood. , Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-940671-66-0
  5. ^ Matthias Kneip : The German language in Oberschlesien: Investigations on the political role of the German language as a minority language in the years 1921–1998. , Dortmund: Research Center for East Central Europe, also: Regensburg, Univ., Diss., 1999, ISBN 3-923293-62-3 , p. 28
  6. ^ Kneip, Sprach, p. 146
  7. ↑ Brigitta Helbig-Mischewski: On the history and future of Polish studies in Germany. In: Brigitta Helbig-Mischewski (editor) and Gabriela Matuszek (editor): Ferryman limitless. Germans and Poles in Europe today: In memory of Henryk Bereska. , Georg Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-487-13639-4 , pp. 225–240, here p. 226, pdf ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2014 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. , accessed January 28, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.helbig-mischewski.de
  8. ↑ Text of the contract on the website of the Federal Foreign Office (PDF; 32 kB) , accessed on January 13, 2012
  9. ↑ Agnieszka Zawadzka: “Cześć! - a day in Polish. ” in: Mehlhorn, Werbestrategien, pp. 123–138
  10. ↑ Page of the European Commission on the subject ( Memento of the original from August 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. , accessed January 13, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ec.europa.eu
  11. ↑ Data from the Conference of Ministers of Education, as of 2012 , accessed on December 22, 2014
  12. ↑ Overview from Eurostat (PDF; 2.1 MB), as of 2008, here p. 11 ( Memento of the original dated March 2, 2012 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. , accessed February 8, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / eacea.ec.europa.eu
  13. ↑ Research project of the University of Greifswald ( Memento of the original from October 19, 2012 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. , accessed December 1, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phil.uni-greifswald.de
  14. ↑ Documentation of a meeting on the website of the German Poland Institute in Darmstadt ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2011 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. , accessed January 17, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutsches-polen-institut.de
  15. ↑ Grit Mehlhorn, Werbestrategien, foreword, p. 9
  16. ↑ Martin Bertram & Anna Susek: Polish at the St. Benno-Gymnasium Dresden. in: Mehlhorn, Werbestrategien, pp. 47–54
  17. ↑ Susanne Arlt: That is the most important price a teacher can get. , dradio.de from November 26, 2012, accessed on December 1, 2012
  18. ↑ Answer of the state government to a parliamentary question (PDF; 58 kB), accessed on January 11, 2012
  19. ↑ Doris Marszk: Polish is not lost yet. , welt.de of April 30, 2006 , accessed on January 13, 2012
  20. ^ Silvia Wojciechowski: Polish lessons in elementary school. The example of the downtown elementary school at the Fischmarkt in Görlitz. in: Mehlhorn, Werbestrategien, pp. 25–34.
  21. ^ Polish textbook "Witaj Polsko!" Announcement in the Polish department of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , accessed on May 26, 2017.
  22. ^ Witaj Polsko! on the website of the German Poland Institute; accessed on May 26, 2017.
  23. ^ Agnieszka Winkler: Germans and Poles. Intercultural competence - the key to success. In: Mehlhorn, Werbestrategien, pp. 239–226.
  24. ↑ Roland Jerzewski: Polish as a “new” foreign language at school - a practical report. in: Mehlhorn, Werbestrategien, pp. 55–64, here p. 56.