Das mehrsprachige Klassenzimmer

What is it about?

The aim of this book is to provide a possibility of further vocational training for teachers who have pupils in their classrooms with native languages other than German. The book provided specific information on languages spoken by these children. The goal of this is twofold. Firstly, we want to enable teachers to better understand and cope with specific problems of children who speak Turkish, Spanish or Vietnamese at home. Secondly, we want to encourage teachers to address the issue of the native languages spoken by their pupils and thereby to develop an appreciation for language diversity as well as for the difficulties related to foreign language learning.

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Why is it important?

The book has two parts. In the first part of the book we describe the situation of multilingual classrooms in general as well as the specific problems of pupils whose native language is not German. We also discuss the most important insights of the research on bilingual language acquisition. In addition, those specific properties of the German language are highlighted which cause the biggest problems for learners with other native languages. Finally, proposals are made as to how to make use of the specific language knowledge of pupils in multilingual classrooms to enrich the teaching and make the lessons even more interesting for all the pupils, primarily as far as German and foreign language classes are concerned, but also in other classes, as for example geography or history. In the second part of the book more than 20 of the most frequent languages are presented which are currently spoken in German schools. The individual book articles cover the most important properties of the sound system, the grammar, and the lexicon of each of these languages, as well as the pragmatics, since language communities differ from each other as far as, for instance, ways of expressing politeness or direct versus indirect speech are concerned. We also point out the specific difficulties which the speakers of these languages are likely to have when learning German. In addition we briefly address the history of these languages as well their current status in their native areas. The situation of the different language communities in Germany is discussed in some detail as well. Each language is illustrated with a few examples that may provide some ideas for various lesson; these include, for example, short poems, songs or rap texts, but also short glossed prose texts, tongue-twisters or interesting words, proverbs or idioms.