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УДК 81(430)(045)
Oberdorfer H. C.
Lecturer of the R. Bosch Foundation in Russia (Germany)
BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN GERMANY
In the past years, bilingualism has become a topic of interest in various disciplines, such as neurology, psychology or linguistics. Scientists of all these disciplines are launching researches, in order to understand the impact bilingualism has on the development of people. A particular focus is laid on the aspect of education: how can children benefit from bilingual education? Why is bilingualism in education important in today's society? In Germany, the number of schools which offer some kind of bilingual education has risen significantly in the last decades. However, the majority of children are still being taught in one language only. The text depicts some crucial terms and facts, related to bilingual education, before pointing out different forms of bilingual education in Germany, particularly focusing on current developments. Its aims are to facilitate the reader to gain an insight into the situation of bilingual education in Germany, to offer background information about bilingualism and its benefits, and to cautiously initiate a process of reflecting on a possible future of bilingual education - not only in Germany.
Key words: bilingualism, education, Germany, languages, multiculturality.
Обердорфер Х. К.
Лектор Фонда им. Р. Боша в России (Германия)
БИЛИНГВАЛЬНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ В ГЕРМАНИИ
В последние годы билингвизм стал объектом изучения различных дисциплин -неврологии, психологии, лингвистики, др. Ученые, работающие в этих областях, исследуют роль билингвизма в развитии личности. Особый интерес вызывает вклад билингвального образования в развитие личности ребенка. Почему билингвальное образование так важно в современном обществе? В Германии число билингвальных школ существенно увеличилось за последние двадцать лет. Однако большинство детей до сих пор учат в школе только один язык. В статье рассматриваются наиболее важные понятия билингвального образования, описываются разнообразные типы билингвальных школ. Цель статьи - ознакомить читателя с особенностями билингвального образования в Германии, показать его преимущества, а также начать обсуждение возможных путей развития билингвального образования в Германии и других странах.
Ключевые слова: билингвизм, образование, Германия, языки, мультикультурализм.
Introduction
«In Germany, the future is bilingual» [1] - this explicit, clear, ambitious phrase was picked as the headline of an article on the German news and education website «Deutsche Welle» in April 2011, years before the significant increase of multiculturality in Germany in 2015/16 [2]. The future is bilingual. But what about the present? What does the current situation look like? On what is the vision of a future education, characterised by bilingualism, based? And how is it supposed to play its role in a multicultural future, «in which the establishment of peace and harmony among all people» [3] shall advance? This article will give a brief insight of bilingualism in education before overviewing its concrete realisation in Germany.
Bilingualism in education is a response to two major developments in the past decades: firstly, a change in society, manifesting itself in a «clearly defined increase in the number of language minorities» [4] in countries all over the world, and secondly, the rapidly proceeding globalisation and the associated need of intercultural communication and multilingualism.
In 2015, a record number of 17.1 million people (every fifth person) in Germany had a migration background - around 4% more than the year before. The majority of people with a migration background, living in Germany, has Turkish roots, followed by people from Poland, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Romania [5].
About one third of the refugees reaching Germany in the second half of 2015 came from Syria, around 10% (each) from Afghanistan and Iraq. More than two thirds of the people applying for asylum in 2015 were under 30. Therefore education is a crucial topic, regarding their life in Germany [2].
Interestingly enough, it is not the people from the mentioned countries or nationalities who are dominating the discussion about bilingual education in Germany. The German language courses for refugees are being covered by special integration classes for immigrants (mostly funded by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees), whereas young people with Turkish roots are, in almost all instances, going to regular schools - having lived in Germany all their life, and in many cases holding both the German and Turkish citizenship. Language and cultural barriers need to be dissolved individually; only in exceptional cases there are special intercultural offers in schools. Most bilingual schools, nowadays, offer education in English, French or Spanish, not in Turkish or even Arabic.
The first bilingual schools in Germany were opened in the 1970s, as a result of the entry into force of the Franco-German cooperation in 1963. The concept, which is still followed by various schools, was to conduct the lessons in both French and German, and to offer the students the option to obtain both the French Baccalaureate and the German Abitur. Mostly schools in areas close to the French border launched this new system of education. The development was followed by the establishment of more bilingual schools, focused on languages other than French. By 2011, the number of schools which offered some kind of bilingual education had increased up to around 600. Moreover, their focus has turned away from being restricted to Franco-German; nowadays there are very different forms of bilingual schools in Germany [1].
1. Types of Bilingual Education in Germany
In order to describe the various bilingual education systems in Germany, a fundamental distinction of two types need to be made: pure bilingual education (for students who are native speakers in both the language of the country they live in and the language of teaching) and the so-called mainstream bilingual education, which implies «the practice of teaching non-language subjects through the medium of a foreign language» [6]. This distinction refers to the two major types of bilingual people: those who have the ability to use several languages on a close to fluent level, but prefer one of them (in most cases their own native language), and those who actually use different languages, regularly switching between these languages, depending on the situation, the person they talk to etc. [6].
The mentioned Franco-German schools, having emerged in the 1970s, followed the principle of mainstream bilingual education. Various subjects, such as History, Geography or Politics, were (and are) taught in the foreign language (French). These lessons do not start before the 7th grade,
when students have reached the necessary level in the foreign language. In the 5th and 6th grade, students aiming to choose their schools' bilingual path usually have additional lessons in the foreign language, in order to accelerate their learning progress. In some cases the lessons in the foreign language (starting in the 7th grade) are complemented by lessons in German, covering a similar topic, in order to make sure that the terms and matters are understood [6].
Many schools have later adapted this system, inspired by the Franco-German schools. Nowadays, there are schools with bilingual branches in the majority of the 16 federal states -offering lessons in different languages, such as English, Spanish or Italian. The number of bilingual schools focusing on the English language has doubled since the 1990s, as a reaction to the increasing relevance of English in the intercultural and globalised world [7].
As schools following the principles of mainstream bilingual education are not primarily aiming at students who do not have German as their (only) native language, it is interesting to have a look at the motives for the parents to send them to these schools (or for them to decide to go there). Not only the wish to be able to speak several languages, in order to improve the chances in a world characterised by globalisation, plays an important role. Many decisions are based on psychological studies of bilingualism. In his study «Bilingual education: Current perspectives», Blanco noted in 1973 that «the consensus of experts in the field of bilingual education is that its primary goals are in the area of cognitive and affective development rather than linguistic and cultural realms» [4]. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association differentiates these aims further: the benefits of being bilingual include the increased ability of using information in a new way, of coming up with solutions to problems and of connecting with other people [8].
Contrary to warnings that bilingual education might lead to the children's confusion and other psychological problems, numerous researchers in the fields of psychology, linguistics and neurology were able to prove that people who grew up bilingually have a far bigger flexibility in their brains and are therefore far more capable of multi-tasking than those who did not [9]. One reason for this might be the higher frequency of linking activities between the two cerebral hemispheres - and the fact that most bilingual adults are proven to have «denser grey matter (brain tissue packed with information-processing nerve cells and fibres), especially in the brain's left hemisphere» [10]. Besides the aspects of communication and multicultural awareness raising, a trigger for choosing a school which offers bilingual education is therefore also the hope for benefiting from it in terms of the child's brain development.
The second type of bilingual schools follows a different path. The target group consists of those students who do not have German as their only native language. Their families have migrated to Germany and want to pursue a fulfilling education in both their native language and German. This situation applies, for example, to many English-speaking expatriates who are educating their children at Germany's international schools [11], but there are also special schools, focused on other nationalities, such as Czech schools (in the east of Germany and Bavaria) (raising-bilingual-children.com), French schools (mostly in the western part of Germany) [12] or Chinese schools.
The bilingual schools for children who are raised bilingually are mostly private and apply a tuition fee (opposed to the free education in German public institutions). The number of bilingual or international schools varies from one federal state to another - mostly depending on its geographical position. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of Germany, for example, has a very high number of international schools, whereas in Bavaria, due to its geographical vicinity with the likewise German-speaking country Austria, they are much less frequent [1].
In general, the number of schools without any form of bilingual education is still the vast majority. Every school in Germany is teaching at least one foreign language (in most cases English), but within the limits of teaching a foreign language - not as a medium to teach another subject or to promote the development of bilingualism, intercultural competence and even brain activity. Bilingual schools - in one form or the other - are still an exclusive phenomenon instead of the normality. However, the awareness has been raised immensely in the last years and will probably result in a further development in this field.
Conclusion
Resuming all the facts given in this article - is Germany's future really bilingual? Its present certainly is not. Most young Germans speak English at a decent level (based on my own intercultural experiences) and therefore possess some kind of bilingual ability, but are only in rare cases actually, independently using both languages to the same degree. Bilingualism in schools is still a rarity, rather than a matter of course. In order to make the education in Germany more bilingual, the academic studies of those wishing to be a teacher in Germany need to undergo fundamental changes: they need to be trained in their subjects as well as in the language in which they are intending to teach. And besides that, an increase of the number of native speakers (of nonGerman languages) is needed in the teaching sector, in order to really facilitate real bilingualism. First steps have been made towards a naturally and inclusively bilingual education - but the German education is still far from being a bilingual one for everybody.
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