Bilinguality
At our bilingual school both German and English are of equal value. To ensure the successful acquisition of each language, we use the immersion method of teaching. Throughout their education, our students learn to use both languages with accuracy and confidence. Immersing students in the language means that they not only learn the colloquialisms and how to socialise in the language, but also how to read and understand textbooks, participate in discussions and debates, and to correctly structure and write texts.
Questions and Answers about Bilinguality
Immersion means immersing yourself in a foreign language. This new language is the colloquial language and the working language, which our students naturally surround in their everyday school life, even if they do not yet know this new language at the beginning. It is almost as if they were on holiday in a foreign-language country or going to school. The children themselves discover the new language from the context in which they use it. Their language competence develops, starting with understanding, through speaking individual words, two and three word sentences, entire sentences, to reading and writing. In this way, all children learn their mother tongue.
Our teachers and Erzieher*innen are native German or English speakers or they teach the language by speaking in their so-called working language at mother-tongue level. In their communication with the students, they always remain in their mother tongue or working language and do not translate. This principle is called “one teacher = one language”. It applies to all our employees – starting with the “Good Morning” in the secretary’s office, through the specialist lessons and Ganztag, to “Please” and “Thank You” when the children receive their lunch. Every single person in our school is a language role model.
Immersion of course works in German and English as well as in any other language.
Erzieher*innen and teachers support everything they say to the children through clear pronunciation, auditions, facial expressions, gestures and pictures in patient repetition and integrated into multi-layered playful and action-oriented periods of time. The foreign language is learnt naturally, so immersion does not overwhelm.
Immersion requires not only continuity, but also time. In our all-day school with co-curricular enrichment program, Team-Teaching or Support-Teaching during regular school hours, working groups as well as early and late care, the children have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the new language throughout the day.
The language in which a subject is taught depends on the mother tongue or working language of the respective pedagogue.
In class, we meet individual needs in German and English through differentiation and Team-Teaching or Support-Teaching integrative in class, both in the language and in the other subjects.
The prerequisite for admission is that their academic performance level as well as their work and social behaviour promise that they can make up for the gap in the other language.
English and German lessons always take place in Team-Teaching or Support-Teaching with two teachers and subject lessons are also often taught in Team-Teaching or Support-Teaching. In the course of the entire school day – also during the Ganztag and afternoon activities – the transfer students have many opportunities to hear and speak German or English. If there is a special need for support, they can either take part in our individual support in “German as a Second Language” (DaZ) or “English as an Additional Language” (EAL). In addition, for all children who come to us later, intrinsic motivation and joy in the other language as well as patience and above all perseverance in the active practice and use of the new language enable quick experiences of success. It is advisable to hear, speak, read and write as much as possible in the new language – in everyday life and at school.