School language
School language is the language that is used in (especially state) schools from pre-primary and primary schools to universities .
The school language is often identical to the language of the local population. However, there are also many cases where this is not the case. Reasons for this can be:
- Too small number of pupils (especially a problem with dying languages)
- Not enough qualified teaching staff
- Missing vocabulary (e.g. for scientific-technical terms)
- Lack of writing
- Low Reputation (parents don't want their children to learn this language)
- Political status (preference for other languages)
- Economic situation ( poverty , commercial languages )
The state plays an essential role in this, as the school system (and thus the school languages) is regulated by legislation . This can range from targeted promotion, even of small languages, to massive repression .
Even massive support from the state , however, can not always prevent the decline of a language as a language school. An example of this is Irish Gaelic : As the national language , Irish Gaelic has the status of a national school and official language in the Republic of Ireland . There are also special protected areas (the Gaeltachtaí ). In 1922 , Irish was introduced as a compulsory subject in all schools in what was then the Free State of Ireland. Even so, the number of Irish native speakers has dropped to around 60,000. Many parents and even teachers today are calling for Irish to be removed from the curriculum as a compulsory subject .
distribution
In most countries there is at least one language that is the main national language, the official language and also the language of schools in all parts of the country. Many countries now also recognize other languages as school languages. In Lusatia , for example , Sorbian is the school language alongside German .
Which language is recognized locally, regionally or nationwide as the school language is often a major political issue. An example is the abolition of Albanian at universities in favor of Serbian in Kosovo during the Slobodan Milošević era , although the Albanians make up the overwhelming majority of the population there.
Use in class
In the best-case scenario, one language is present in all subjects from pre-schools to universities.
Writing (possibly apart from the preschools) is the basis of almost every school subject. Learning to read and write therefore usually has a special priority. As a rule, special emphasis is placed on the main national language. Minority languages are offered as a (voluntary) additional subject.
Where schools exist for members of minorities, the situation is often reversed. The minority language is the general school language, the main national language is an additional subject, which is then more of a compulsory subject , as in the case of the Danish school system in southern Schleswig.
In the case of smaller minorities that do not form local or regional majorities, the offer is often limited to general education schools , while the main national language dominates at secondary schools and universities.
The endeavor to hold lessons in the respective mother tongue has changed some languages significantly. Some languages (e.g. many Papuan languages ) had to be written down in the first place. In the case of other languages, the question arose as to which form of language should be taught at all (problem of the standardization of grammar , phonetics , spelling ). An example of this is the dispute over the different variants of Norwegian .
literature
- Friederike Klippel, Elisabeth Kolb, Felicitas Sharp (eds.): School language policy and foreign language teaching practice: historical highlights between 1800 and 1989 . Waxmann Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3830928669 .
See also
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Volume 26 of the 'Munich Work on Foreign Language Research'.