Evaluation of English Skills at Platanus

Dr. Steinlen and her team from the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen-Nürnberg will accompany our teaching this school year to evaluate the English and German skills of our pupils.

Since 2012, Dr. Steinlein and her colleagues at the Department of Foreign Language Teaching (Prof. Thorsten Piske) at the Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg have conducted scientific research at bilingual primary schools and in high schools throughout Germany.

At the beginning of this year, from the 26.9 to the 29.9.2016, and at the end, from the 15.5 to the 19.5.2017, our visitors will spend a week respectively in all school classes to survey the linguistic capabilities of our pupils. They will for example engage our children in listening comprehension and reading and writing tasks. German Tests will be also administered from our teachers.

At our school, in contrast to normal foreign language teaching, subjects are also taught in English. The children learn a foreign language in all relevant and authentic contexts and become thereby self-active – similar to the acquisition of the mother tongue.

The goal of immersion is to promote bi- and multilingualism – therefore the mother tongue and another or other multiple languages. We endeavour through this way of language acquisition, to promote a positive attitude towards foreign languages and try to dismantle and prevent fears of the incomprehensible and fears of difference.

We look forward to interesting, scientific results which may give valuable insights into the learning processes of our children and may benefit our teaching methods.