Bilingual Education in West Germany: recent developments

Abstract

In the Western world, West Germany is second to the United States in the number of children who enter the school system from backgrounds where a language is spoken that differs from the usual language of instruction. In the United States it is estimated that there are about four million school-age children who come from families where a language other than English is spoken in the home. In West Germany, there are about 700,000 school-age children who come from homes where a language other than German is spoken. This means that there are proportionately almost as many children in German schools (about 9% of all school-age children) who come from minority-language backgrounds as in American schools (about 10%). In this article we would like to discuss developments in bilingual education in West Germany. The term 'bilingual education' is rarely used in the German context, yet two of the three approaches to be discussed here are quite similar to what is typically called bilingual education in the United States. After discussing these instructional models, we will turn to some recent pedagogical developments. The final section of this paper is concerned with current debates concerning the role of the home-language in the education of minoritylanguage children in German schools. THE SITUATION OF 'FOREIGN' CHILDREN IN WEST GERMANY