Bilingual Children in a German school

Corinne's post made me think about the situation that is gonna happen for us sooner or later. Our daughter is bilingual (obviously German/English) and she goes to a German school. What is going to happen when she starts English lessons (she is in first class at the moment so there's two more years)? Is she going to be bored or a smart-ass that corrects the teacher all the time or will she even fall behind because she thinks she knows it all and won't do any work? Do any of you have any experience with a bilingual child?

I honestly don't believe the above will apply. With the boredom, although she can speak English that won't necessarily mean she understands the grammar rules or can read with the right pronunciation, unless of course you have done these things with her, so she will still have a lot to learn. With regards to being a smartass, I'm sure she will try, don't all kids, but I think she will probably make mistakes which will maybe make her think twice.

For examples:

My youngest son can speak perfect English but now he has started in school in the UK he has a problem with reading, he pronounces the words wrong. He hasn't learnt the grammar rules of either language so he will start from scratch there.

My eldest son upon moving to Germany at aged 13 tried to be a smartass in the English lessons but he soon realised he didn't know the grammar specifics and when it came to written work it wasn't as easy as he thought, he always got a 1 in English but he still had to work for it.

At the end of the day, just because we speak a language doesn't mean we actually know it, as some posts on the board will clarify mine included.

My daughter speaks with a Mancuian (Manchester) accent (just like me and my German wife!). A home, the way we talk is hardly 'posh', we use lots of phrases like:
Stop buggerin' about and get thi 'ands washed ready for us tea!
It causes no problems at home, but tends to raise a few eyebrows when I shout at the kids in the middle of real kauf!

My daughter is in the third class at a normal German school, we have problems with the 'oxford' english they teach. We have endless problems with simple words like the english word 'bad'. At school they have some ridiculous pronunciation which sounds more like 'bed'. It's bad with a short 'a', not short 'e'.
They are no where near getting to grips with grammar or anything complex.
I am tempted to send the teacher some Peter Kay, Lily Savage, Last Of The Summer Wine or Fred Dibnah DVDs and see what she makes out of that!
I studied English Literature to A level, but it never helped my with my english grammar, so I'm waiting to re-learn it properly this time around!

Of course everyone in Germany speaks German with exactly the same accent, oder? Apart from our farming neighbours, who speak to me in Plattdeutsch

Hi

I have experience of teaching bilingual English/German children in both the UK and Germany. The greatest problems seem to occur in written work, mostly involving spelling mistakes.

As regards their attitude in class, if the teacher can use them as a source of correction and check with them on certain points, they can have a very useful role to play in any lesson. To avoid them getting bored, the teacher could give them extra, advanced written tasks or reading to do. The ones I have taught have always been very helpful.

It would be important for any bilingual child to make sure they are up to speed with the grammar points that are being covered by the rest of the class. There are lots of examples of spoken English which, when written in a Klassenarbeit (test), would be marked as wrong by a German-speaking teacher who learned the language grammatically. As an example, I have a boy in one of my classes who has a British dad - he scores between 2 and 3 in tests where one might expect a 1.

Aidan

@Alien. I can so relate to that!!! We (all of us apart from the baby speak with an Irish accent and I can't see the teacher teaching words like "wee" for "small" and stuff like that. When I remember my English teacher I still get goose bumps. He was the Headmaster and was only giving the English lessons because we didn't have any other teacher that were willing to teach English. So I am afraid, that our daughter will be sitting there going "YOU ARE SAYING IT WRONG". Nobody English/Irish or American speaks Oxford English so I don't know why they even bother teaching it. I really think that it should be a MUST that the school teachers are native speakers.

Our two both go to an EU school so they do have some subjects always taught in english from the off, What I have noticed though is that as their friends in the neighbourhood are all german they pick up phrases and mix them i.e. they will often end a sentence with OR rather than isn't it?

I assume the english taught in german schools will have emphasis on the grammer more, so if anything long term the english level from a german school should be extremely good, not sure about the accent / prounounciation though but if you speak english at home it should turn our really well I hope.

As always the parents contribution is vital to tie all this lot together.

My two sons seem to have taken the reserved approach. They don't want to appear too clever and don't want to be continually used to correct everyone's sentences including the teacher's. I thought it would be a good idea if my youngest son (14) enrolled in the Bili (bi-lingual) class. Basically, it is social studies but only taught in English. I thought what an asset he would be for the class. Wrong! The teacher never used him constructively. He was bored and unhappy and eventually I requested that he leave the class. In fact, I suspect the teacher didn't want to be shown up. I even volunteered to come in and help "liven up" the subject but my offers were ignored.

In short, I think some teachers will be happy that they have a native English speaker in the group but mostly, they don't know how to use a native speaker to the best advantage.

My son is now in the 3rd class at school and didn't do English like the other kids for the 1st half year because English coincided with DAZ (Deutsch als Zweitsprache).
This half year (why do they change the table every half year???) they do not coincide, so he does English and DAZ. He finds English a little boring, but there are still some English words he doesn't know (always calls it 'Handy' and not 'mobile', for example).
Like the other posters with kids already in school; even though they can speak English, you don't usually learn good grammar at home. There's still some areas of interest even at young ages but especially for older kids.
I have to say, my son still finds it easier (after 5 years here) to read English than German, though German is more consistent and phonetic with its spelling.

And where are the native speakers in English schools?? Gosh English teachers teaching German in Britain are horrible! I've experienced some German teachers while staying in the UK.

I would say studying languages to become a teacher in Germany is a 100 times better than studying over in the UK! I don't want to offend someone but it's just a fact. Even our universities could be better, but at leastthey sytem is better than British ones!

Nothing like that is offered at my daughters school, it's a tiny village school with one class for each year. It would be expecting too much for them to treat her differently to the other kids. They only have 4 teachers, one for each class (including the school director), so they would not be able to organise it. As she has been in the German school system from the beginning I don't think it even crossed their minds that she was in England until she was 4 years old!

@bridget: I think I have to agree with you. Foreign languages in Britain are mostly taught by 'normal' teachers, not by native speakers. So it is the same situation as here, just with different languages.

'Insel Affe' don't usually want to learn a foreign language anyway, it think, unfortunately, that's our basic (built-in?) problem.

well we had a french woman teaching us french, she was a stunner too

I have three kids in various stages of schooling, the eldest one moving up into the Oberstufe (Gymnasium) after the summer holidays, the middle one is in 9th year Realschule and the youngest in the 4th year of Grundschule, so we have gone through just about the whole school system with bilingual kids.

I come from Nottingham and speak with an accent and so do the kids. Every one of them has been picked up for it and the eldest one was actually told to try and control it because she was confusing the class. None of them tried to come across as smart asses, and in my opinion it is up to the teacher to integrate these children properly and use them to an advantage. My youngest probably speaks better English than the English teacher in the Grundschule - and that came from the teacher herself and not me!

I have, on occasion, had reason to "have words" with the english teacher in Gymnasium - they may be super qualified but certainly do not know everything - and have tried to give the kids enough self-confidence to be proud of their ability!

And as for Brits being lazy with languages I know many who are bilingual - they just don't live in the UK. It isn't very often required there. We are fortunate in that English is the international language.

@Bridget German universities are better??? How long have I known you and how long have you been a student for??? I only studied for 4 years! You had to finish it in the time in those days or you had to pay (now of course you have to pay anyway..!)

My son has always had German teachers teaching him German and French teaching him French Where we are moving to they say Ich (pronounced Ish) but the German teacher told him it was pronounced Ick...maybe where she came from but he soon put her right...

Oh must tell you this...she showed them a picture of a post box in Germany...and asked them what is was...of course my son knew but the other kids suggested it was a condom machine!

... which is hardly surprising considering that most primary school teachers have not studied English at university, let alone spent any serious amount of time in an English speaking country. This is due to English at primary schools being a relatively new thing, and I am sure that this situation is going to improve over time, but until then we will have to live with primary school teachers who say "bed" when they mean "bad" and worse.

Incidentally, I teach English at a "Gymnasium" with a bilingual branch, and I currently have an Irish/German girl in my 5th grade. Naturally, she has an Irish accent, which is why I have told her parents that correcting her pronunciation is largely up to them and that I will only correct her if I have a strong feeling that her pronunciation is influenced by her German or by the spelling of a word that she did not know before. Fortunately, it seems to be going very well and after eight months now she still seems to be highly motivated.

@Goldilocks: In your situation I would talk to the teacher and discuss your worries with her/him in advance. Ater primary school, a school with a bilingual branch would definitely be a plus as progress in English is a lot quicker, i.e. there would be a lower risk of your daughter getting bored. From the third year on, a number of subjects are taught in English (usually Geography, Political Science and History, although not all at the same time) - which can be a good thing, too, but as has been mentioned, that depends on the teacher as well.

...it's not just primary teachers who teach english in this way ...it would appear to be endemic in German schools ...I don't know why they don't listen to native speakers :doh:

Unfortunately that is often true, but at least primary school teachers have some sort of excuse...

My daughter admits to half listening to the class and using the rest of the time to do studying for test in other subjects. She does do 'most' of the English homework but her teacher is just not bothered if she does it or not.

One advantage of English lessons for my daughter is that, because she has not been speaking German for that long, English lessons are more of a German lesson in English...just done a bit backwards

I went to see our son's english teacher in the Realschule to discuss with him "the accent", and he was very laid back about it. He told me that accents are an enrichment of speech, so he really went up in my estimation!

@Bombi But let's face it. You won't be able to teach over here and you don't really have a certificate which is accepted in Germany. I mean what do you learn in two years at university in Britain (as far as I know you only got your BA) so why 4 years??
Please don't forget that I spent a year abroad during my studies (which is useful if you want to teach a foreign language) and had to do Latin for another two years!

@Bridget, one of those four years was also spent abroad!!!

@Bombi But I guess you spent your year abroad at university, which I didn't as you know, therefore it doesn't count in my years at uni! And you know why I am still at university. If I didn't had the accident in 2003 I would be teaching already. But I don't know why I should justify myself to you! You'll have to admit that the British system is not really the best one. Maybe if you have rich parents who can afford to send you to a private school you'll get better chances but the kids I've seen in British schools didn't have those chances! And the teachers weren't good.

One reason for that might be that they still learn grammer at school over here (trying to learn German without learning grammer must rank as just about impossible!), which unfortunately has not been the case in the UK for the best part of a generation. Sadly I must admit that it was the exagerated egalitarian principles of some members of my generation that were largely resonsible for this reprehensible state of affairs. Unfortunately, these same people are now sitting at the top of the hierarchy, effectively blocking all efforts by the younger generation to rescue the situation. The last thing that these people will admit to, is that they effectively rendered a substantial proportion of the following generation unemployable, because their potential employers - from previous generations - expected their employees to have a reasonable command of the English language and simple arithmetic! [img]http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/boese/g020.gif[/img]

That may be the case from your experience. However, I would bet that an English person teaching German in a UK school would admit that he was wrong and perhaps is more likely to utilise a "native" speaker in their class a lot quicker than a German person teaching English in a German school would. (hope I got that the right way round...I know what I was trying to say )

I found in Germany that is was very much a case of "I am the teacher, I hold the pen that gives you your grade, so I am right".


I disagree. I was offered jobs teaching English in both my sons schools in Germany, Realschule and Grundschule, and I only had my CELTA. And I know for a fact that in the Realschule there was a Kenyan lady teaching English who couldn't speak proper German or English, but the fact that she had the basics was good enough.

I think the German school system may have been better in its day, but I really don't think that is the case anymore.

My eldest has started his new school in Year 10 and unfortunately they have only just started teaching German in Year 7, but they have gone out of their way to help by letting him opt out of learning Welsh and giving him German course work so that he can do his GSCE in German. And the German Teachers when they speak to him only speak to him in German, and even asked him to correct them if they were wrong.

A child will learn more when encouraged and nurtured, not criticised and put down because the teacher is scared that they might know more than they do.

As for the German education system... let me simply refer you to PISA... nuff said.

And Bridget... again... refer you to PISA and the other studies, where the difference in educational opportunity/results between children of richest and poorest parents is wider in Germany than in other industrialised nations. Germany as a 'social' model? I don't think so.

Bridget - BA modern languages degrees in the UK last for 4 years (5 in Scotland as they only have 13 rather than 14 years of school beforehand), year 3 is spent abroad. That does not qualify you to teach though. You then have to do a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) and then a probationary year of teaching before you are a qualified teacher (so in total a 6-7 year training). Certainly then you can teach in Germany. Germans are similarly only allowed to teach as full teachers in British schools after they have completed the zweites Staatsexamen. Obviously in both countries there is some leeway for employing language assistants who are native speakers but these get paid less and don't get the benefits.

Having taught at a large German university (social sciences), I also completely disagree with your comments on standards but that is a different question.

Well after my ranting and raving about Englisch lessons in my daughter's school (out of date: aussies in munich), I went home after work and my daughter had English homework to do, she had to learn a piece about the Gingerbraed man, who escaped when the auld doll open the oven door. The Gingerbraed man was to haevy for the fox to carry, so the fox caried the Gingerbraed man across the river on his head...

Yes the spelling mistakes are intentional, because that's exactly how the words were written. (There was actually loads more but I've forgooten what they were)

While I accept it's easy to do a typo, I do think when you are giving young children handouts, the teacher should be sure that they contain no mistakes (and definitely not as much as was on this one sheet of paper they were given.)

That reminds me of some maths my daughter had to do, she was doing them wrong. Her answer was the teacher told them to do them wrong like that and tomorrow they would learn how to do them correct

Being a non-native-speaking language teacher, I naturally disagree. Apart from the practical problem that it would be difficult to find tens of thousands of qualified native-speaking English teachers for the job, there are a number of things to be said for knowing the learners' first language and their specific problems with acquiring English first hand, i.e. from one's own experience.

I agree, however, that great care must be taken to make sure that teachers speak and write English (at least) at a near-native level, preferably having spent a longish period of time in an English-speaking country. Clearly this is not the case with the teacher Irish Lassie is talking about, but I don't find generalisations particularly helpful.

I have to agree with Woodside there, I think a lot of native speakers haven't a clue of English grammar (I know I don't) I speak it as I learned it (which isn't neccessarily always correct, cos there's alot of Irish English involed) I do know how to speak correct english, but i don't always do it, which could mean that I teach the children my bad habits, also even though I know how to speak correct English, I'll be buggered if I know how to explain the grammar rules, as I don't even know them myself any more, if I see something wrong I know it's wrong but why it's wrong is something that I can't often say.

I don't know what would atually have been worse, the teacher not recognising the mistakes, or seeing them and doing nothing about it, I've spoken to her about it and if it happens again, I'm going to report it at a higher level, this is the future of my child at stake (and you can be sure I'll let all the other parents know about it)

As a qualified primary school teacher from England, working in a school specifically for teaching English to kids, I have to say that what I've seen of English language teaching in German schools does not impress me that much and compels me to believe that native speakers are necessary (or at least much better). The daughter of my boss brought her exercise book in the other day and the English teacher (German) had taught them to write, "I have been being...". She had a page of sentences starting "I have been being..." all written out perfectly. Her mother (Australian, Doctor of Applied Linguistics) asked me to just reassure her that we really don't say, "I have been being..." and I laughed.

A little bit of preparation before a lesson is all that's needed, regardless of the teacher's mother tongue. But then, all teachers know that...or should...

Have to say though that even in my school, there are teachers who, although not having mother tongue English, speak good English but teach it wrongly. Noticed on the whiteboard today that some kids had been taught that, "I have already washed the dishes" is wrong in preference to, "I have washed the dishes already." Which would you say?

I would say that the first is UK English the second is US English.

I would never say the US form is wrong, simply that we don't use it in England.

Hi KazAV

In no way did I mean to say that non-native speakers are better teachers than native speakers. I merely wanted to point out that they are not necessarily worse and that their apparent disadvantage of having learned English as a foreign language can have positive aspects to it as well - as long as they have acheived a high level of competence. Of course preparation is a must, but that goes for both groups of teachers.

I have no doubt that my English is not perfect either, but I cannot imagine that somebody who teaches tenses that do not exist (e.g. those present perfect progressive forms of "be") or has difficulties with basic word order is an otherwise competent speaker. (By they way, I would prefer "I have already washed ..." but "I have washed ... already" is OK, too, in my opinion.) Both of your examples show that there are German English teachers whose English leaves to be desired and who should rather do something else for a living, but that just means that teacher selection is not strict enough, not that all non-native-speaking teachers are useless.

I don't seem to be able to edit my previous post, so I'll just add a new one: As far as English at primary school level is concerned I actually agree that native speakers are much preferable to non-native speakers: Children at that age are very good at learning languages intuitively and picking up pronunciation and having a native-speaker for a teacher is their only chance of learning English without any German accent. For older children/teenagers that need a more cognitive approach to learning languages (there is only so much you can learn intuitively in four lessons per week) I stand by what I have said.