DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 436 098 FL 026 082

AUTHOR Bliesener, Ulrich; Tapia, Ivan, Ed.; Blochmann, Georg M.,Ed.

TITLE Foreign Language Teaching in Germany.INSTITUTION Inter Nationes, Bonn (Germany).ISSN ISSN-0177-4212PUB DATE 1998-04-00NOTE 33p.; English edition of B & W titled "Education and

Science."PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) Reports - Descriptive

(141)

JOURNAL CIT Bildung und Wissenschaft; p2-32 Apr 1998EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Bilingual Education; Curriculum Development; Elementary

Secondary Education; English (Second Language); ForeignCountries; Global Approach; Higher Education; InserviceTeacher Education; *Multilingualism; Preservice TeacherEducation; *Second Language Instruction; Second LanguageLearning; Student Evaluation; Vocational Schools; WorldAffairs

IDENTIFIERS European Union; *Germany

ABSTRACTThis theme issue of "Bildung und Wissenschaft" explains the

importance of multilingualism in today's world, focusing on foreign languageinstruction in Germany. It examines the following issues: "Multilingualism ina Changing World"; "The Significance of Foreign Languages for Germany";"Foreign Languages in Schools: The System--A Few Basic Facts"; "The HamburgAgreement"; "Exchanges and Encounters"; "Foreign Languages and 'Bildung'";"Guidelines: The Official and Secret Curriculum"; "New Approaches to ForeignLanguage Teaching"; "The Expectations of the Customers"; "Foreign LanguageTeaching in Vocational Schools"; "Bilingual Curricula and Bilingual Lessons";"An Early Start"; "Teacher Training"; "Further Training for Teachers";"Multilingualism and the Position of English"; "EU Programmes: Their Impacton Foreign Language Teaching"; "Correction and Assessment: Grades,Examinations, and Control of Standards"; and "In Conclusion." (SM)

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EDUCATION ANDSCIENCE

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Foreign languageteachingin GermanyMultilingualismin Europe

Guidelines andthe school system

Bilingual classes

Lateral learning

English as alingua franca

Teacher training

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CONTENTSForeign language teaching inGermany

Multilingualism in achanging world

The significance of foreign 4languages for Germany

Foreign languages in 4schools: the systema few basic facts

The Hamburg Agreement 6

Exchanges and encounters

Foreign languages and 9"Bildung"

Guidelines the official 11

and secret curriculum

New approaches to foreign 13language teaching

The expectations of the 16customers

Foreign language teaching 17in vocational schools

Bilingual curricula and 17bilingual lessons

An early start 18

Teacher training 20

Further training for teachers 22

Multilingualism and the 23position of 'English

EU programmes their 26impact on foreign languageteaching

Correction and assessment 29grades, examinations,

control of standards

In conclusion 32

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Cover photo: Volker Derlath

Ulrich Bliesener

FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHINGIN GERMANYA knowledge of foreign languages is not only the basicprecondition for understanding foreign cultures in general,but has also become a virtually indispensable tool in every-day life. The leading place where languages are taught andlearned is still the school. How to teach languages has beenthe subject of heated debate between experts andpractitioners for many years. The author of the followingissue of "Education and Science" attempts to inake`aninterim assessment of this discussion. His vigorous plea formultilingualism also documents the great significanceattached to teaching foreign languages in Germany today.

Multilingualismin a changing world

In Germany, language teaching hasalways been a core area of educa-tion. In the past, the ancient lan-guages of Latin and Greek formedan essential part of general educa-tion and preparations for universitystudies. Modern languages, espe-cially English and French, wereregarded as a useful contributiontowards everyday life more thantowards higher education. Englishor French grammar was treatedlike Latin grammar: the studentsconjugated and declined, theylearned English and French inorder to read the great works of lit-erature not primarily to commu-nicate, but rather to show thatmodern languages are also a sourceof learning.

After the Second World War,modern languages, and particularlyEnglish, rapidly gained in impor-tance, not only because of thepractical benefits, but becausethey enabled West Germany to

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become part of the internationalcommunity. Correspondingly, thecurriculum guidelines stated thatthe political achievements of theUnited Kingdom and the UnitedStates should form a key section ofthe content of English teaching.

The educational reforms of the1960s and 1970s, which aimed togive equal opportunities to every-one in society, also had an impacton foreign language teaching. Allchildren, irrespective of schoolgrade or school type, were to learna modern foreign language.

The dramatic changes of the lastdecade, the fall of the Iron Curtainand the opening of the borders inEurope, the migratory movements(in particular of labour andrefugees), the process of Europeanunification, cooperation inEuropean and international organi-sations, and globalisation, havemade the ability to communicate inlanguages other than one's mothertongue a key skill. The ability toexpress one's own interests, atti-tudes and values fluently in a for-eign language and to understandand correctly assess those of oth-ers has thus become an indispens-able element of every education.

This applies generally, to com-peting for a job on the Europeanlabour market, to expanding one'sown opportunities in life via thefreedom to travel and work abroad,and to widening one's own horizonsthrough the experience of the cul-tural achievements of other peo-ples. In this way, one gains insightsinto values, philosophies and life-styles which differ from one's own.Such insights have actually becomenecessary if one is to play a fullpart not only abroad, but also athome, as migration makes societymore of an ethnic mix. Thesechanges have resulted in new ideasin language teaching. For example,the Council of Europe has devel-oped an overall concept for foreignlanguage teaching (ModernLanguages: Learning, Teaching,Assessnierit, A CommonEuropean Framework ofReference, Strasbourg 1996); theschools committee of the StandingConference of the Ministers ofEducation and Cultural Affairs ofthe Lander in the Federal Republicof Germany commissioned anexpertise (On foreign languageteaching in Germany situationand proposals for further devel-opment), which was published inOctober 1994 along with thoughtsabout a fundamental concept forforeign language teaching. Sincethen, commissions have beenformed in the Lander to look intonew curricula for foreign languageteaching and to search for newapproaches for more appropriateand future-oriented teaching, with-out losing sight of tried and testedmethods.

The vital point is that foreignlanguage abilities have ceased tobe the distinctive mark of an intel-lectual elite, which alone was per-mitted access to other cultures.

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Every individual is to be given theopportunity to learn other lan-guages and thus to step beyondthe limits of his own culture andto encounter other cultures.Foreign languages have thus nowattained the rank of a culturaltechnique like reading, writing orarithmetic.

The schools, and particularly theforeign language classes, have tocope with these changes. The"European dimension" is not just anice concept invented by theEuropean Union, but is already areality. A key element of this

European dimension is the varietyof languages and cultures, whichmust shape the European futureon a basis of equality, both byretaining and cherishing culturaldifferences and simultaneously bydeveloping a European identity.This cannot succeed in the form ofone language for all; instead, weneed multilingualism at as manylevels as possible. Multilingualismhas already become an importantprecondition for people to takeadvantage of freedom of movementand freedom of establishment inEurope.

Thesignificance offoreign languages forGermany

More than other countries inEurope, Germany relies on peoplewho can communicate not only intheir own mother tongue but alsoin other languages. Its geographicalposition, with Denmark, theNetherlands, France, Poland andthe Czech Republic as its directneighbours, its many close linkswith Italy (and with Greece,although this has not encouragedall that many people to learn mod-ern Greek), the community withthe countries around the BalticSea, the significance of Russia forGermany, the consequences deriv-ing from its historical, and oftenunfortunate, common past with itsneighbours (particularly Franceand Poland), and in very generalterms the way its commercial lifeand its prosperity depend onexports, but also respect for theachievements' of other cultures: allthese factors make it necessary forpeople to be able to communicatewith others, beyond mere commer-cial interests. It is not simply aquestion of marketing and sellingspeaking "the customer's language"

but of exchanging ideas, experi-ence and values, without whichthere can be no trusting coopera-tion between the nations. Peoplecan only understand each other if,through a familiarity With the otherlanguage, they have grasped thedifferent perspective on the worldand how it compares with theirown views. Without a knowledgeand understanding of others, oneremains isolated in the world.

This has substantially changedthe demand for foreign languagesand means that the schools mustcreate the conditions for wider,and in some cases different, learn-

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ing of foreign languages. Theschools are responding to this,albeit not always with sufficienturgency. But there are still vitalattempts which point in the rightdirection: a greater focus on practi-cal language, early teaching of for-eign languages, bilingual teachingin some secondary schools, self-determined learning, ideas aboutlateral language acquisition, and soon: these are all ideas which applygenerally to the current situationof foreign language teaching inGermany.

rForeign languages inschocils: the system -

fewa basic facts,/(The school system was described indetail in Education and Science1/1998.)

1 In addition to the fundamental.1. principles of democracy andthe rule of law, federalism is a basicpart of Germany's constitution.Both the Federal state and theLander have sovereign rights. It isimportant to understand this,because under the constitutionalarrangements of the Basic Law,education, science and culture arethe sole responsibility of theLander; they are an expression oftheir sovereignty. Educational andcultural policy are the only areas inwhich the Lander are sovereignand in vv-hich they can expresstheir particular historical, geogra-phical, political and social charac-teristics. At the same time, theLander share a responsibility forthe state as a whole. This overallresponsibility entitles them to co-operate amongst themselves, butalso obliges them to collaboratewith the Federal Government. It isonly fair to point out that the rightsof the Lando; even in the sphereof education, have been underminedby acquired or derived responsibili-ties, e.g. by the provision of Federalfunding for innovative projects.Also, the sum of the Lander is nota homogeneous whole, but is divid-ed into north-south, east-west

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and A and B Lander (A = SPD-governed, B = CDU-governed),whereby all sorts of conflictinginterests in the field of educationcan impede agreement amongstthe Lander themselves, as well astheir cooperation with the FederalGovernment. As the FederalGovernment is permitted by theconstitution to represent Germanyin its external relations, it demandsthe right to do so in Brussels in thefield of educational and culturalaffairs. On the other hand, Article23 of the Basic Law states that aLand minister can represent themember state in Brussels. It is trueto say that there is a permanentdispute about responsibilities bet-ween the Federal and Landerlevels. At the same time, withoutthe agreement of the Lander or ofa particular Land, the Federal.Government cannot do anythingfor schools in general or for a spe-cific school. For example, theFederal Foreign LanguagesCompetition, which is largely direc-ted and funded by the FederalGovernment, would hardly be ableto function properly without thevoluntary involvement of theLander.

Following a four-year periodL. for all children (six years inBerlin and Brandenburg) at aGrundschule, the curricula atsecondary level are divided bet-ween different types of school,with different leaving certificatesand entitlements. In most Lan,der,the secondary schools are dividedinto Hauptschule, Realschule,Gymnasium and Gesamtschule,with the Sonderschule for thosewith severe learning difficulties.There are also differences in thevarious Lander, such as the sup-port level, the orientation level, theschool centre, the expandedRealschule, the integrated Haupt-und Realschule, theWirtschaftsschule. Some of theseare simply traditional forms of edu-cation going under a different,Land-specific, name; some of themare substantially different. In cer-tain Lander, the orientation levelexists as a discrete organisationalform, with the decision on the fu-ture education of the child notbeing taken until the end of thesixth grade.

3The ministries of education. and science of the Lander are

the highest Lander authorities foreducation, science and culture.They develop the policy guidelinesfor these fields, they adopt legaland administrative provisions (e.g.acts on schools) stipulating theorganisational form of the school(types of school, total length ofschooling, number of lessons persubject and per week, teacher train-ing) and the content of the cour-ses, as well as the objectives of thelessons. The general educationalobjectives are fleshed out in guide-lines and curricula. The ministriesalso supervise the teachers atpublic schools, and authorise thetextbooks and materials permittedfor use in the schools. All theLander have their own researchinstitutions for schools, universitiesand further education, which aresupported by the ministries. Ten ofthe Lander have separate mini-stries for science and research; inthe others, schools, science andculture are dealt with by a singleministry.

A The rules governing foreign"i language teaching at primarylevel, i.e. in the Grundschule , varybetween the Lander. It begins inthe third grade and is a subject "suigeneris" with its own teachingmethods: priority on oral language,very limited teaching of readingand writing, no assessments orgrades, anda very important pointthe involvement of all pupils. Thereis both the encounter-related lan-guage concept (situational use oflanguage, mainly English, withFrench in certain Lander) and theresults-oriented concept, in whichforeign language teaching evolvesout of German language teachingand is committed to prescribedobjectives as the first foundationsfor learning a foreign language.

In the Hauptschule and theRealschule, the foreign languagetaught is generally English. In theRealschule, it is possible to opt fora second foreign language (gener-ally French) from the seventh oreighth grade. In the Gymnasium,at least two foreign languages arecompulsory, one of them usuallybeing English. The StandingConference of Education Ministershas adopted an agreement ontypes of schools and courses atSecondary Level I, stipulating astandard number of lessons forgrades 5 to 9/10, with a number ofcore subjects for all types ofschool: German, mathematics, firstforeign language, natural sciencesand social sciences. At theGymnasium, a second foreign lan-guage is compulsory from grade 7.The foreign language is taught inthree to five 45-minute lessons aweek. The second foreign languagefrom grade 7 (compulsory oroptional) is also taught in three tofive lessons a week. Foreign lan-guage teaching is a compulsory ele-ment of all general education atSecondary Level I. From grade 7,foreign languages form part of theindividual pupil profile in terms ofthe choice of subjects. Anyoneaiming to obtain a Realschule leav-ing certificate must have beenlearning a foreign language fromgrade 5 on. The educational objec-tive of the Lander is that everypupil will learn two foreign lan-guages in the course of his school-ing.

At Oberstufe level in theGymnasium (Secondary Level II,grades 11-13 or, in four Lander,grades 10-12 or 11-12), the pupilshave certain obligatory courses,but can also set individual priori-ties for various subjects or groupsof subjects. Foreign languages fallinto the group of linguistic-literary-artistic courses (German, foreignlanguages, art). The other coursegroups are a) social sciences andb) mathematics/natural sciences/technology. Following a decision bythe Standing Conference ofEducation Ministers in 1997,German, a foreign language andmathematics have to be studied upto Abitur level.

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The current demographict.). structure in Germany is theoutcome of major populationmovements and migrations: 12 mil-lion displaced persons from theformer German territories to theeast (up to about 1950); 3.5 millionethnic Germans (many with noknowledge of German) from theeastern European countries (1950-1995); until the Berlin Wall wasbuilt in 1961, 2.7 million peoplecame across from the former GDR;616,000 came between 1961 and1988, and another 390,000 after1990. In 1997, about 7.2 millionforeigners lived in Germany. Thelargest group in numerical termswas the Turks (28.1 %); 18.1 %hail from Yugoslavia. 25.3 % comefrom the member states of theEuropean Union, with the Italiansforming the strongest group at8.2 % of the entire foreign popula-tion in Germany.

The Lander have put variousmeasures in place to facilitate theintegration of foreign children andadolescents, with a particular focuson helping them to learn German(preparatory classes, bilingualclasses with teaching in the mothertongue and German, intensivecourses in German as a foreign lan-guage, extra classes outside thecurriculum). In order to preservetheir cultural identity, foreignpupils can also have supplemen-tary teaching in their mothertongue, focusing on the cultureand history of their countries (upto five lessons a week).

At schools and vocational train-ing courses, teaching normallytakes place in German. There arecertain exceptions to this: private

schools, bilingual schools andclasses in which foreign pupils aretaught in their mother tongue, e.g.for children of the Danish minorityin northern Schleswig and for chil-dren of the Sorb minority inBrandenburg and Saxony. As partof the efforts to make Germanhigher education establishmentsmore attractive for foreign stu-dents, some institutions havebegun offering certain courses in alanguage other than German,although this is not yet very wide-spread.

a The subdivision of Germanyinto sixteen Lander explains

the differences between theLander in education and culturalaffairs. These differences arereflected in (a) the content andlength of teacher training, (b) thenumber of lessons per subject forthe various age-groups, (c) formsof teaching, (d) the content of teach-ing, in the light of the orientationand the political situation, and (e)to a certain extent, the form andcontent of the final examinations.

The Standing Conference of theMinisters of Education andCultural Affairs of the Lander inthe Federal Republic of Germanywas set up in 1948 to ensure abasic degree of uniformity andcompatibility whilst preservingLand-specific interests. At the ple-nary sessions (usually four a year),the decisions needed to maintainuniformity and compatibility in theeducational system are taken.Since agreement always has to beunanimous, decision-making is dif-ficult, and the development ofinnovative concepts tends to becharacterised by the lowest com-mon denominator or optional rec-ommendations rather than by boldsteps forward.

t The table below gives the for-eign languages taught in

schools and the percentages ofpupils learning them:

English

Greek

Italian

Polish

French

Russian

Danish

Turkish

Latin

Spanish

Dutch

Hebrew

Other languages(including modernGreek, Chinese,Japanese, Arabic)

95.94%

0.25%

0.34%

0.04%

24.52%

5.61%

0.06%

0.22%

10.88%

1.02%

0.08%

0.01%

0.15%

Regular meetings are heldbetween German delegations (con-sisting of representatives of theFederal Foreign Office i.e. theFederal level, and the StandingConference of Education Ministers

i.e. the Lander level) and delega-tions from all countries whose lan-guage is taught at German schools;the intention is always to promotethe teaching of the respective lan-guage.

The HamburgAgreement

One major element of the educa-tion system in the FederalRepublic of Germany is the so-called Hamburg Agreement of 28October 1964, a revision of theDusseldorf Agreement adopted bythe Minister-Presidents of theLander on 17 February 1955 inorder to ensure uniformity in thereconstruction and expansion ofthe education system. TheStanding Conference of EducationMinisters had done importantpreparatory work towards this.

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The Hamburg Agreement coversorganisational aspects, and particu-larly the order of languages, whichwas made more flexible than it hadbeen in the Dusseldorf Agreement,not least because of the Franco-German Treaty. It was now possible(albeit relatively rare) for Frenchand Latin to be the first foreignlanguage taught at the Gymnasiumfrom grade 5, and not just English.The agreement also stipulated nineyears of compulsory schooling witha possible extension of one year atthe Hauptschule (to grade 10). Inparticular, the introduction of pilotschools at which new ideas couldbe tested out was made easier: thisgave rise to many initiatives andcreated a climate in which thereform of the Oberstufe was possi-ble from 1970. Not least, foreignlanguage teaching benefited from anumber of new didactic methods.Following German reunification,the Hamburg Agreement wasextended to include the newLander. The Hamburg Agreementacts as a sort of central arrange-ment for the school system, eventhough the responsibilities for cul-ture and education are distributedfederally.

Until the reform of the Ober-stufe in 1972, the Gymnasienwere categorised by the subjectsthey offered: a) ancient languages;b) modern languages; c) mathe-matics and natural sciences. To acertain extent, a difference stillexists today at Secondary Level Ibetween Gymnasien focusing onmodern languages and those con-centrating on mathematics andnatural sciences. But the reformrendered the distinction arisingfrom the conditions attached totheir A bitur examinations irrele-vant. Only the Gymnasien special-ising in ancient languages are stilllisted as a special category.

Foreign languages are taught inthe following order:

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Finally, we should mention theschools with a special focus on aparticular language. These are theFranco-German Gymnasien (inFreiburg i.Br., Saarbrucken,Berlin), with some teaching donein French. There is an Italian-German school in Wolfsburg(because of the high number ofpeople of Italian origin originallyrecruited as labour byVolkswagen), a Polish-GermanGymnasium in Frankfurt an derOder, and Anglo-German schools invarious parts of Germany. Thereare also bilingual curricula, with anincreased number of lessons in thefirst foreign language from grade 5and teaching in non-language sub-jects in that language from grade 7.The aims are to acquire bilingualabilities in the mother tongue and aschool-taught foreign language, tocement an ability to engage in dia-logue in both languages, and todeepen intercultural understand-ing. Ultimately, this is intended topromote mobility in higher educa-tion and in work. In 1993, therewas a total of approximately 74Franco-German-oriented schools in11 Lander and some 80 Anglo-German-oriented schools; theseschools were not only Gymnasien,but included Gesamtschulen,Realschulen, Hauptschulen andGrundschulen.

No more recent figures are avail-able, and the situation is still devel-oping, because this sort of teaching

just like the bilingual classes inindividual subjects is very popu-lar with and greatly supported byparents.

Finally, mention should be madeof the European Gymnasien inBavaria, which at present are stillpilot schools, with three compulso-ry foreign languages (from grades5, 6 and 9). There is also a nation-wide attempt to introduceJapanese as a third foreign lan-guage and, lastly, there are variousschools around Germany whichoffer a selection of French,Spanish, Russian, Latin, Chinese,Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese orItalian as a third foreign language.

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0Exchanges andencounters

School partnerships andexchange trips form a key elementof foreign language teaching. ThePedagogical Exchange Service ofthe Standing Conference ofEducation Ministers supports andorganises exchanges and schoolpartnerships for pupils and teach-ers. There are a number of pro-grammes, including exchanges forteachers and school attendance forpupils lasting up to one year.

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School exchanges in the context ofschool partnerships are initiated,prepared and supported as part offoreign language teaching, andoffer pupils a chance to see howthey fare in a foreign language set-ting. The experience that what hasbeen learned can be of practicaluse, coupled with the experienceof one's own deficiencies, generallymotivates pupils. A few figures canserve to indicate the scale of theseactivities.

Bavaria:School year 1988/89: 850 partner-ships, of which 413 with France,283 with English-speaking coun-tries, 60 with Italy, 30 withHungaryLower Saxony:School year 1992: 732 partner-ships, of which 495 with France,147 with Britain, 58 with theNetherlandsRhineland-Palatinate:More than 700 partnerships,including more than 300 withFrance, 11 with Poland, 11 withHungary

These figures from the StandingConference of Education Ministersare approximations, because manypartnerships stem from the initia-tive of individual teachers andoften run for years without theadministration becoming involved.Also, many schools maintain notjust one, but several partnershipswithin the European Union andwith schools overseas. In addition,the Pedagogical Exchange Servicepromoted more than 700 US-German school partnerships in1992, with funding from theFederal Foreign Office. In the sameyear, there was a network of some1400 exchange schools in Germanyand the US. Many of these partner-ships are based on a joint teachingproject, and this has particularlybeen fostered by the LINGUA pro-ject (cf. section on EU mobilityprogrammes). This opening up ofschools makes a major contributiontowards intensive foreign languagetraining, simply because it demon-strates to the pupils that languageabilities are of practical use andgives them a sense of achievement.

Foreign languagesan_c21"Bildung"

German schools are basicallydesigned to shape and develop thepersonality. All other aspects takesecond place to this overridingobjective. This separates schooleducation from vocational training,and this is reflected on the admin-istrative side for example by a divi-sion of responsibilities between dif-ferent units or departmentswhereby officials working on eitherside regard the others with certainreservations. Such a clear distinc-tion between general educationand vocational training is unique inEurope. This has become particu-larly obvious in the LINGUA pro-gramme: as the Germans saw it,Action W was reserved for voca-tional schools, and pupils at gener-al schools were excluded. OtherEU member states permitted theparticipation of pupils at generalschools, because they felt thatevery type of school educationalways serves to prepare people forworking life; the distinctions areless rigid.

"Bildung" is a key concept forGerman schools, and it crops upagain and again in the debate aboutschools and their mandate, oftenwith a more or less ideologicaltouch: Bildung as education, gen-eral education, basic education,formation of the personality, edu-cational values, adult education,education for all, educationalopportunities, the danger of declin-ing educational standards, etc.Bildung cannot be equated with"education" or "training", it is morethan just the passing on of know-ledge and skills, and includes atti-tudes, dispositions, views and val-ues. That is why the ancient lan-guages (Latin, Greek and Hebrew)

have played such a major role andstill do so today in some places,because they were linked to anancient education and personaldevelopment which was consid-ered an indispensable part of thepreparations for academic study.That was the ideal of the tradition-al German Gymnasium, whichitself was the expression ofGerman intellectual history and theGerman love of classical antiquity.Facts, on the other hand, weretaught at so-called "Real" institu-tions the "higher citizens' schoolsand Realschulen". It was not untilthe mid-19th century that Englishgained a firm place in the canon ofoptional languages, still behindFrench. But neither French norEnglish held the same rank as theclassical languages in the educa-tional ideal of the Gymnasium.

It is important to understandthis, because the educational idealof the "humanistic Gymnasium"(the name is programmatic; today,we speak more modestly of theGymnasium focusing on ancientlanguages) had a major impact onthe content of modern languageclasses. Walter Hubner, one of thefounding fathers of modern foreignlanguage teaching, explained therole of Bildung in modern lan-guage teaching in his Didaktik derneueren Sprachen (Modern lan-guage teaching), 2nd edition, 1933.He started by emphasising thepractical significance of a know-ledge of modern languages "forreasons of national competition"(i.e. commercial interests), butwent on to restrict this, saying that"mere knowledge and ability enterthe service of the banal or the in-ferior, something which is impossiblewhere there is genuine Bildung.Knowledge and ability wouldtherefore have to be deliberatelyplaced in the service of Bildung,of education. He subdivides theconcept of Bildung into formaland material education (the con-tent matter). For Htibner, formaleducation means "the formation ofabilities, the methodological devel-opment of habits or forms in whichintellectual work takes place withgrowing independence; the cre-ation of a system of mental func-tions enabling a person to masternew situations in life". Thisincludes: sharpening the senses,

the ability to link new terms toobjects and processes, the under-standing of grammatical relationsand of the general sense of syntac-tical complexes, the ability to judgeand discuss heard or read content,the precision and exactness ofobservation and thought, thestrength and depth of feeling, thepower and resilience of the willthat should be the desired harvestof formal education and shouldalways be taken into considerationwhen designing lessons. It is to beaspired to through the use of mate-rials which together reflect the"unity of the national cultural her-itage" and are committed to theintellectual values of the true, thegood, the beneficial and the moral.The pupil is to develop in terms ofthese values through "educational(formative) work" (Kerschen-steiner). There is a tensionbetween formal education and theentire make-up of the mental activ-ities and dispositions of the pupilon the one hand and the "objectivevalues of the material" on theother. And the form of work is thatof "the argument deriving from theexperience of value and the energyof mental activity". That, in a nut-shell, is the educational conceptwhich still basically determinesmodern language teaching todayand is often viewed with astonish-ment by foreigners. The formula-tions sound rather excessive to ourears; nonetheless, they preciselydescribe the qualitative aims andthe basic orientation of the GermanGymnasium, both of which stillapply today, albeit in rather weak-ened form, and both of which actas a guideline to which all theother forms of schools more or lessconsciously adhere.

Even in the late 1950s, pupils atthe Gymnasien were still learninglanguages in order to be able toread and understand the literature

of the other culture, not to be ableto communicate with others in thismedium on all sorts of subjects.Language was the object and con-tent of the lesson. And this isalmost precisely what WalterHubner describes as the education-al goals of modern language teach-ing; this is the teaching in whichfuture foreign language teachersare trained at universities by thespecialists. Even if the emphasisnow is more on language abilitiesthe concept ofBildung is still feltand can be seen throughout:

the teachers is yery much orientedtowards the history of literatureand the academic side. Practicallanguage training often loses outhere, and complaints about this arefrequent.

The intention here is not toargue for pure practicality. Thepersonal development side, i.e.Bildung, remains important today.Bildung serves to immunise peo-ple against totalitarianism, it openswindows to other points of view, itmakes people independent andthus helps to preserve peace.

"The consideration of language imparts insights intothe structure of the language and knowledge of thefunction and effects of linguistic tools. The followingknowledge and insights are necessary: knowledge ofthe categories of grammatical description, knowledgeof important rhetorical and stylistic methods andinsights into their effects, knowledge of characteristiclinguistic and stylistic structures of English."

--(from-EinheltlicheNtungsanforderungen in der AbiturprufungEnglisch (Uniform Examination Requirements for the Abitur exami-nation in English), Decision by the Standing Conference ofEducation Ministers, 1 December 1989).

In some of the Lander, therefore,questions of the structure and ofgrammatical phenomena (still)form part of the written Abiturexamination. The way literature isused also still owes much to the oidtraditions: comparing the valuesimparted with one's own, dis-cussing the content this corre-sponds to the "commentary" or"discussion" asked for in examina-tions. When an expertise by theStanding Conference of EducationMinisters regarding the furtherdevelopment of foreign languageteaching called for greater empha-sis on the practical side, there wasbitter criticism of the impendingdecline in standards. Yet studyingShakespeare does not exclude theteaching of practical language abili-ties you just have to aim to do itdeliberately. Another aspect in thiscontext is that the initial training of

Foreign languages open people'seyes to other forms of coexistence;only with the language can onelearn more about other countries(and this includes more than litera-ture), foreign languages are need-ed for European unification, part-nerships and exchanges only func-tion via language that is whatthose responsible at various levelsare saying about the teaching offoreign languages. This is morepractice-related, but the concept ofBildung keeps shining through,e.g. when, prior to revising guide-lines on English teaching, consider-ation is given to whether thereshould be two types of Englishteaching, a Bildung- oriented one,as in the past, and a practical formof teaching.

Finally, the Gymnasium andthe German school system as awhole have a long tradition whichshould not be given up unnecessar-ily. This includes the long durationof language courses (usually 9 yearsfor the first foreign language /

11

English; 7 years for the second for-eign language /French/Spanish/Russian; 5 years for the third foreignlanguage /French/Spanish/Russian), and this can really onlybe justified by arguing that thisteaching offers more than just thelearning of a language as a meansof communication. But not every-one taking their Abitur wishes tobecome an English or a Frenchteacher, and therefore not every-one needs such intensive educa-tion in literature. European unifica-tion and the growing internationalcooperation demand an ability tospeak foreign languages thatenables people to talk about alltypes of substantive issues. Theschools must take this intoaccount; they should do more thanjust pursue what is "useful" (thecustomer's language). But theymust not forget that they are alsoservice institutions for society,which has certain expectationsabout the "product", not only inspecialist subjects, but also in for-eign languages. Representatives ofindustry and commerce often com-plain that those taking the Abiturlack the language skills which theyexpect from their staff at the vari-ous levels of corporate hierarchy.

The changed expectations anddemands are increasingly beingreflected in the guidelines for for-eign language teaching. The mas-tering of "complex everyday lan-guage" is now given as a teachingobjective. The ability to communi-cate, to express intentions in dia-logue, to adopt adequate commu-nicative strategies is increasinglyplaying a role in the requirementsfor teaching, particularly with aview to intercultural discourse.Other issues currently being debat-ed include an early start, multilin-gualism, bilingual teaching, inde-pendent language acquisition, lan-guage skills for communication inall areas of real life, partial compe-

tence, different weighting ofcourse content, opening up ofschools and experience of foreignlanguage realities. These are indi-cations of a changed situation. Thediscussion of the future develop-ment cannot be an easy one inview of the traditions describedabove; the prevailing strategy is topreserve what works and to keepintroducing innovations whichbuild on it. Much has started mov-ing, some things have been left bythe wayside because they cannot(yet) become accepted or becauseof the related costs.

( Guidelinesthe official andsecret curriculum

Nothing happens in schools with-out guidelines. The administrationhas created guidelines for everysubject, for every type of and levelin school, and foreign languageshave not been overlooked. A guide-line is an important instrument forthe schools supervisory service, forparents and teachers, and ulti-mately for the pupils too. It stipu-lates what is to be covered over ayear, it proposes methodologicalapproaches, and it sets out howmany progress checks (tests, class-work, homework, examinations)are to take place in each schoolyear.

Guidelines are a means of con-trol of the state; they are thereforecommissioned by the relevant min-istry and, following approval, areissued by the ministry as an officialdocument. They are binding on theteachers. They are normally draft-ed by commissions set up specifi-cally for the purpose; in someLander, government agencies areentrusted with the task. In earlier

times, the guidelines appeared tobe virtually immortal; in view of therelatively rapid developments inresearch into language teachingand the changing demands, theynow only have a limited lifespan of10-12 years. Drafting usually takestwo years, after which teacherssubmit comments, criticisms aretaken into account, a hearing isheld and the guideline is thenintroduced with accompanyingseminars for the teachers. After acertain period, the teachers areasked whether and what changesappear necessary. The responsesare supplemented by the latestresearch from the appropriatebody and finally result in a decisionto revise or redraft the guideline.Didactic and methodological devel-opments cannot be transformedinto guidelines much more quicklythan this, and one should remem-ber that every change to the guide-lines entails a revision of the text-books. Textbooks have to be autho-rised; they therefore have to followchanges to the guidelines.Providing textbooks is very cost-intensive; account has to be takenof this.

Guidelines also have a politicaldimension. They reflect not justthe state of academic knowledge,but also the political orientation ofthe government in power. That iswhy the distinction between A andB Lander (SPD or CDU/CSU-gov-erned) is important. For example,in Bavaria the monarchy, parlia-ment and Shakespeare play a keyrole in English teaching alongsidegrammar and the understanding ofstructures; but in Hesse, for exam-ple, the emphasis is on complexeveryday language and literature,with formal linguistic correctnesstaking second place. Any change ingovernment, or even a new minis-ter, brings changes in the guide-lines. In itself, this has nothing todo with the quality of the guide-lines. Neither the "conservative"nor the "progressive" governmentsare immune to including inappro-

1 2

priate stipulations in the guide-lines. But: stable governments(Bavaria, North-Rhine/Westphalia,Baden-Wtirttemberg) result in rel-atively continuous developments inthe guidelines. In Lander wherepower often changes handsbetween the political parties, theguidelines are altered more fre-quently. However, all the Landerare bound by the HamburgAgreement, the UniformExamination Requirements and thestandard description of the end ofthe 10th grade, as decided at theStanding Conference of EducationMinisters, and the need for unifor-mity and internal compatibility inthe system means that changescannot be implemented that easily.

Of course, the governments donot just send their guideline com-missions away with a blank piece ofpaper. They select the members(experienced teachers, recognisedexperts) carefully, and they stipu-late principles to be observed, e.g.the basic stock of knowledge to bepassed on, teaching objectives, ordesirable innovative developments.In order to ensure that these prin-ciples are adhered to, the work ofthe commission is monitored moreor less closely by experts, not leastin order to ensure that it will meetwith acceptance from teachers andthe socially relevant groups andassociations which need to givetheir approval (e.g. parents, tradeunions, political parties, etc.). Theprinciples to be observed by theguidelines for foreign languagesmay contain aspects like pupil-ori-ented teaching, communicativeapproach, independent learning,project work, but also overall top-ics and requirements, e.g. regard-ing the themes and periods of theliterature. More recently, it hasbeen the case that these generalprinciples may be non-language-specific and stipulate nothing morethan the fundamental points for

classwork; these points are thenobserved and fleshed out when theactual guidelines are drafted. Asschools are made moreautonomous, they are called on todevelop their own programmes,thus enabling priorities to be setand the needs of their pupils to bemet but these priorities must alsobe in line with the overriding gen-eral principles. Everything in thisprocess must adhere to the act onschools of the Land and to theGerman constitution. It is difficultto obtain an overview of the sys-tem, since these documents maybear different labels in differentLander, and be called frameworkplan, compulsory points, guideline,school programme, etc. And, final-ly, in those Lander with a centralAbitur examination, the key pointshave to be much more detailedthan in the Lander where theexaminations are run decentrally.None of the Lander stipulate anyone method, except that teachingshould be communicative and beoriented towards communicativelanguage use. Teachers refuse togive up their methodological free-doms, even though it might some-times be useful to prescribe one orother method more definitely.

Guidelines are important steer-ing instruments, but after theyhave been read once they arerarely consulted again. There arevarious reasons for this.Framework guidelines do not pro-vide a methodology with which toplan and give lessons. They are notdiscussion papers or manuals, butprescriptions aimed more towardsthe ministerial bureaucracy, therelevant social groups whoseapproval is required, and the fewexperts whose advice is usuallysought, and less towards theteacher who has to prepare hislessons. This can also be seen inthe language used in the guide-lines, which is far removed fromany methodology. At the sametime, there are the textbooks,which have to conform with theguidelines if they are to beapproved for use in schools.Textbooks flesh out the prescrip-

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tions of the guidelines and processthem for use in class. And so wehave the odd situation that theguidelines are binding prescrip-tions for the teacher and his work,but are rarely consulted by him,because he bases his languageteaching on the approved text-book. Textbooks are therefore thereal or secret curriculum. Thisdoes have advantages: even lessable teachers cannot do muchwrong. But they are outweighed by

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the disadvantages: publishers,whose influence on teaching isgenerally underestimated, supplynot only the textbook itself, butalso accompanying manuals withsolutions to the exercises and pro-posals about the use of additionalmaterials. It is hard to escape thisinfluence in daily teaching in theclassroom: the tiresome preparato-

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ry work has been done by theaccompanying manual, which alsoautomatically takes any didacticand methodological decisionsabout the textbook. To someextent, this relieves teachers oftheir responsibilities, and they arealso deprived of the reflectionabout their own work which isneeded for a sensible improvementin quality and for further develop-

23

ment. As an aside, we might alsoremember that, by selecting textsand illustrations, textbooks alsodetermine the direction of thecontent and can help to createprejudices.

fsieW approaches toforeign language teaching

Let us recall once again the generalenvironment which will have to bereflected by all language teachingin future. Language skills, at leastin the main European languagesoutside the mother tongue, are nolonger demanded only in exportdepartments and managementoffices or in international organisa-tions, but are a prerequisitethroughout Europe and around theworld. They help to determine thescope for action and decision-mak-ing open to the individual as helives his own life. Without languageskills, intercultural encounters andcommunication with foreign citi-zens in Germany and our neigh-bouring Europeans are impossible.At the same time, they expand thepossibilities for involvement in thevarious manifestations of culturaland social life. Without insightsinto Europe's rich linguistic andcultural variety, no ties to theemerging European Union can beformed, and no development of aEuropean identity which extendsbeyond one's own cultural links cantake place.

Against this background, aknowledge of and skills in foreignlanguages are an essential part ofbasic education. Traditional lan-guage teaching must adapt anddevelop correspondingly. In thedebate amongst the experts overthe last 5 to 10 years, the tradition-al issues, which could be said toform a basic didactic and method-ological stock of issues (correction,literature, phonetics, writing,preparation for the Abitur, etc.)have been joined by new themeswhich are becoming increasinglysignificant.

Foreign language teaching canno longer be reserved for certainmore advanced educational cours-es, but is a normal element ofevery curriculum; this necessitates

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new approaches in the didacticsand methodology of foreign lan-guage teaching.

Knowledge of just one foreignlanguage is no longer sufficient; inline with the call made by theEuropean Union, as manyEuropean citizens as possibleshould learn two foreign languagesin addition to their mother tongue.Hence the call for multilingualism.But if multilingualism is to be aconstituent element of languageteaching, there must be a generalplan which describes and justifiesthe relationships between the lan-guages, and particularly that ofEnglish to the other languages, andwhich shows at

ment in place of the one generallyused today. This also means thatthe performance expectationsneed to be reformulated for thevarious types of schools.

Pupils at different types ofschools and in different grades inschool have different learningneeds and learning methods.Pupils receiving vocational trainingwish to use languages differentlyfrom someone at a Gymnasium;pupils at the Hauptschule learnlanguages differently from otherpupils. This needs to be reflectedin a specific didactic approach(objectives, content, methods).This helps to

If foreign language learningbegins earlier, in the third grade ofthe Grundschule, it will be possi-ble for a second foreign languageto be taught earlier as well, in thesixth grade, and for work to starton a third foreign language in theeighth grade. This would boost thetime available for lessons withoutincreasing the number of class-room hours in secondary school(something that could not happenanyway).

The entire time spent on learn-ing at school, i.e. from the thirdgrade, once

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intervals and with what integration(lateral language learning) moreforeign languages can be offeredand learnt in school. In particular,decisions need to be taken on reor-ganising the time spent on teach-ing the languages, structuring thecourses better, streamlining them,and varying their content.Whenever attempts are made toincrease the number of languageson offer and to improve the optionsopen to the pupils, the principle ofuniformity and internal compatibil-ity of the system must be observed.

If it is expected that more for-eign language learning is to takeplace, this must be within thereach of all pupils. This particularlynecessitates a different, developedsystem of correction and assess-

motivate the pupilsand gives them a sense of achieve-ment which itself stimulates themto learn languages. The foreign lan-guage teaching designed for theGymnasium must not serve as ayardstick for all language teaching.

The variety of languages inEurope should be reflected in a dif-ferentiated availability of languagesin school. This can be achieved byincluding further languages in thespectrum of subjects and by widen-ing the combinations of traditionalsubjects.

If the time spent on learning thelong-term subjects (English,French) is not cut, there will notbe any space for further foreignlanguage teaching; it is not possiblesimply to increase the overall num-ber of teaching hours indefinitely,and other subjects will not be pre-pared to give up lessons so that thetime can be spent on foreign lan-guages.

The Grundschule must not sim-ply be a native-language school.Children at that age are particularlyreceptive to foreign languages; lan-guage teaching is therefore indis-pensable at Grundschule level.

1 5

reading and writingin the mother tongue has beentaught, must include the learningof foreign languages. This meansthat foreign language teaching atthe Grundschule, whilst beingspecifically designed for pupils atthat level, must be results-orientedand rhust dovetail with the follow-ing courses at Secondary Level I,without preempting those courses.The secondary schools must beable to build on the results fromthe Grundschule, but, by chang-ing their methodology, must ensurethat the pupils can make the trans-fer without any problems.

After a basic course has beensuccessfully completed which aimsat defined and practically usefulgeneral communicative skills(roughly in line with the thresholdlevel and waystage of the Councilof Europe), the first and secondforeign languages should becomeoptional, so that work can begin onlearning an additional foreign lan-guage.

The courses must be stream-lined, content must be reviewedwith regard to its relevance, and anappropriate balance must be struckbetween education (Bildung) andpractical use. Foreign languageteaching in a European dimensionshould attempt more than in thepast to embrace the realities of lifein the other country, and shouldnot restrict itself to academic workon texts. It would be desirable tohave some practical reflec-tion

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from the other perspective, whilstpreserving their own indepen-dence, other languages must buildon the preparatory work done byEnglish teaching.

Intercultural education is a spe-cial issue. Because of the shift inperspective which goes hand inhand with the learning of a foreignlanguage, language teaching is pre-destined for this purpose.There

0

on theexpressive and communica-

tive possibilities of the foreign lan-guage. Teaching should aim toimpart general language skillswhich can be transferred to manyareas.

In view of the call for multilin-gualism, a didactic approach to lan-guage teaching must be developedwhich considers other languagesand shows how one can move fromone language to another. Languageteachers primarily think in the lan-guage they are teaching, ratherthan considering language learningas a whole. No competitionbetween the languages must arise.Teaching in the various languagesmust be interrelated. This necessi-tates a didactic and methodologicalapproach based on lateral languagelearning. This is particularly true ofEnglish, which tends to dominateand force other languages into amarginal role. English teachingmust prepare the ground for thelearning of further languages. And,

is a sub-stantive aspect to intercul-

tural education: information aboutthe country and its culture butthere is also a linguistic componentwhich enables the individual tobehave appropriately in certaininterculturally relevant situations.Simply knowing facts about theother country is not enough. Thenecessary linguistic tools need tobe provided for the person torespond appropriately to a specificsituation. This includes an insightinto the cultural dimension ofhuman behavioural patterns whichare expressed linguistically. Theobjective should be not imitation oradaptation, but the ability to find amodus vivendi and/or forms ofcooperation. A special aspect ofintercultural education derivesfrom the fact that English today isfrequently used as a lingua francaby speakers of other languages. Insuch situations, English loses itsspecific English cultural identity,and this identity is partiallyreplaced by the cultural identity ofthe user with his different mothertongue. The didactic basis mustprovide indications of how todesign English teaching in order toprepare people for this situation.

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The bilingual teaching of certainother subjects is becoming increas-ingly popular. But there is still noappropriate didactic and method-ological infrastructure enabling thisto be expanded. Bilingual coursesare often run using the staff avail-able to the school, without anydidactic or methodological prepa-ration. This may save money, but itrisks amateurism.

Foreign language teaching mustbe based on the fact that it canonly ever impart a fraction of thelinguistic reality. Even in our moth-er tongue, we never dispose of thetotality of the language; we learnmore every day, especially as thelanguage is always developing. Thelearning of foreign languages is alife-long task. For this reason,pupils need to have the method-ological tools which enable them tokeep learning on the basis of thelimited skills they have so faracquired, which put them in a posi-tion to revitalise forgotten lan-guage skills when they need to,and which will give them the scopeto acquire a further language ontheir own. It is necessary to delib-erately provide them with method-ological approaches for languagelearning and to practiseautonomous learning organisedby themselves on their ownresponsibility. In addition toinsights into the functioning of lan-guages and of interrelationshipsbetween different languages, thiscan for example include how tomonitor one's own language skillsand use the model of the mothertongue to measure how the linguis-tic behaviour of native speakerscan be utilised to further one's ownlanguage skills, how to absorb whatthe interlocutor provides one with,how to say what one cannot (real-ly) say because the linguistic toolsare lacking, but also the basicstudy skills. In particular, there is aneed for a different self-awarenesson the part of the teacher (theteacher as advisor on learning).

Courses must be better struc-tured. In particular, the long-termcourses do not really seem to bestructured into sections withdefined competence levels. ForGymnasium courses, the UniformExamination Requirements providea description of the final level to beattained after nine years of Englishand seven years of French. ForSecondary Level I, grade 10 nowhas a uniform attainment descrip-tion for English. But further subdi-visions of skills levels and contentwould be feasible. This wouldenhance transparency in theEuropean comparison, make cours-es easier for outsiders to under-stand, and help the learner todecide whether to take this or thatlanguage, to continue or to drop alanguage.

In the course of the reform ofthe Oberstufe, there have alsobeen basic courses available toimpart partial abilities (hearing andunderstanding, hearing, under-standing and speaking, reading andunderstanding). Interlocutors withdifferent mother tongues can com-municate very well if each speakshis own language but understandswhat the other is saying. Whenconcentrating on the skill of hear-ing and understanding, for exam-ple, everything which is needed forthe production of a language, andwhich normally involves a risk oferror, is treated subordinately oreven omitted. In international situ-ations, this is a very useful andpractical skill. Courses of this typewere developed and published inLower Saxony in the 1970s, butmet with little response fromteachers at the time and were dis-missed as semi-education. Today,however, the value of such coursesas an enhancement of communica-tion and as a contribution towardsmultilingualism is being rediscov-ered. In its position paper on theGerman EU Presidency in 1989,the Standing Conference ofEducation Ministers suggestedsuch courses. What is lacking is adidactic foundation to help ensurethat many of the "unnecessary"skills are still passed on, so thatfirstly the pupil is able to under-stand the interlocutor, and second-ly he is able to build on that toattain full competence if necessary.

A few years ago, the schoolscommittee of the StandingConference of Education Ministerscommissioned an expertise whichwas published as "Zum Fremd-sprachenunterricht in derBundesrepublik DeutschlandGegebenheiten and Vorschlagezur Weiterentwicklung" (On for-eign language teaching in Germany

situation and proposals for fur-ther development) by the StandingConference in Bonn, 1994. It con-tains a number of proposals on theabove-mentioned challenges. Manypoints have also been made in thethoughts about a basic concept forforeign language teaching pro-duced by the schools committee ofthe Standing Conference, whichwere attached to the expertise byway of introduction. Other ideasare also being discussed; however,it can be seen that the necessarycommunication between the vari-ous sides educational administra-tion, teaching staff, universities,parents is only taking place to alimited extent. Basically, the edu-cational administration decides,whereby individual interests oftendetermine which ideas are takenup and which are rejected. Thismeans that education policy inGermany (and in other countries inEurope) is sometimes somewhatchangeable.

The expectationsof the customers

What do the customers industry,commerce, government, societyexpect from foreign languageteaching in schools? They naturallyexpect school-leavers with goodlanguage skills. For commerce, thisprimarily means good Englishskills. The vast majority of all com-mercial contacts with other coun-tries take place in English. Once,when the LINGUA monitoring com-mittee was discussing the questionof preparatory language classes, forexchange groups in vocationaltraining, the Danish representativesaid: "Who wants to learn Danishthey'd do better to speak to oneanother in English." A prominentrepresentative of the Association ofGerman Chambers of Industry andCommerce gave an opening talk tothe federal congress of a multilin-gual association in which his basicmessage was: "We need English,only English, because everyonelearns English."

A lot of recruitment interviewsin large, internationally active com-panies, are held wholly or partly inEnglish. Knowledge of other lan-guages is useful, but forms a jobrequirement only in very rare

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cases. From this perspective, thequestion of multilingualismassumes a completely differentaspect: it is viewed as a goal for afew, not for many, and certainly notfor all. As one climbs higher in thecorporate hierarchy, it is desirable,but is less a requirement of workthan a social and educational bene-fit: one talks with one's businesspartner not only about business,but also about art, culture, litera-ture and music, if possible in hislanguage.

The expectations of the lan-guage skills of school-leaversdepend on the needs of the recruit-ing company. This means thatimportance is attached less to tex-tual analysis and more to the abili-ty to write minutes, a note, a sum-mary of specialist and operationalmatters, to deal with faxes and e-mails and the oral presentation ofproducts, together with knowledgeof the respective country and itsculture and with appropriate inter-cultural behaviour and understand-ing. In government administration,languages are not needed as muchas in large companies. But eventhere, language skills are becomingincreasingly relevant: there havebeen times when Germany hasfound it difficult to fill posts in theEU administration because of alack of qualified officials with ade-quate English and French skills.

Foreign language teachingin vocational schools

Efforts are being made to intro-duce foreign language teachingmore widely in vocational trainingestablishments, but this is provingdifficult because the interests ofthe training facilities do not neces-sarily include foreign languageinstruction for the trainees. Also,the apprentice is part of a work-force earning profits, particularly

from year 2 of the apprenticeship.Firms therefore have reservationsabout any increase in the timespent at vocational school. Despitethis, all the representatives of thebusiness and professional associa-tions take the view that a know-ledge of foreign languages is helpfuland necessary. The "FrameworkAgreement on the VocationalSchool" (Decision by the StandingConference of Education Ministersof 14-15 March 1991) says thatteaching at the (part-time) voca-tional schools should provide spacefor foreign language learning, inline with its significance for thespecific occupation. For occupa-tions in "business and administra-tion" in particular, vocationally-ori-ented foreign language teaching isoffered in the form of both compul-sory and optional subjects. At full-time vocational schools, foreignlanguages are basically a compulso-ry part of the curriculum, with atleast one foreign language beingtaught at full-time schools to stu-dents of marketing, catering, com-mercial, technical and welfareoccupations (cf. statistics onp. 25).

However, foreign languageteaching is primarily regarded asEnglish teaching, irrespective ofspecific rules on French or otherlanguages in the Land. On the onehand, this is linked to the wide-spread perception that thosereceiving initial vocational trainingwill only be able to keep learningthe language they learned atschool, and would not be able tocope with a new language,although this has often been dis-proved; on the other hand, thecompanies themselves give prefer-ence to English. One special char-acteristic of language teaching atvocational schools is its orientationtowards the particular occupation:the teacher selects the content andlanguage in the light of occupation-al situations, and this involvesmore than just the relevant termi-nology. The degree of acceptanceof foreign language coursesdepends partly on the (positive ornegative) experiences with lan-guage learning at school, andgreatly on how far it is possible to

1.8

indicate specific opportunities touse the skills acquired in the worldof work. This has been shownclearly by the joint pedagogicalprojects in the context of vocation-al training: those attending voca-tional schools now recognise therelevance of language learning(which had previously been viewedas a burden) and suddenly take aliking to learning more language.Of course, specific didacticapproaches would have to bedeveloped which reflect the natureand the interests of those receivingvocational training. At the sametime, these approaches shouldbuild on the foundations laid atschool.

Bilingual curriculaand bilingual lessons

This special type of curriculumdemonstrably produces a higheryield and a European benefit.Demand for it from the parents andthe pupils is continuously growing.There is a need for a further devel-opment of the didactic andmethodological foundations and astabilisation of the organisationalbasis via better coordinationamongst the Lander and wideravailability of the curricula. At pre-sent, lack of money is causing thedevelopment to stagnate to someextent. It would be important in allthe Lander to expand this teach-ing to more and more types of sec-ondary school, to include furthersubjects and to produce appropri-ate teaching material for the wholeof Germany. In particular, it wouldbe desirable to see a greater orien-tation towards topics of theEuropean dimension, for exampleEuropean history, the common cul-

tural heritage, questions of busi-ness and the environment, andintercultural understanding.

The demands made on theteaching staff are considerable andtherefore necessitate special cours-es of initial and further training. Itis to be hoped that bilingual curric-ula will contribute to a greater(post to post) exchange of teach-ers between the EU memberstates. It would be particularlydesirable to see greater temporarymobility on the part of languageteachers and cooperation withtheir colleagues in the bilingualpartner country; this would be tothe advantage of bilingual teachingby native-speaker teachers, andwould also enhance and deepenthe linguistic and interculturalskills of the language teachers.

In addition to these bilingualcurricula, there are also bilinguallessons, and these are enjoying ris-ing popularity as well. They couldbe described as a lighter version ofthe bilingual curricula: individualsubjects especially history, socialstudies, geography or natural sci-ences (chemistry, biology) aretaught in a foreign language, main-ly English, but also French, andoccasionally in other languages.However, English is dominantthroughout; English is regarded aseasy, and there is also the pressurefrom the media and pop music andthe advice of the parents derivingfrom their working and touristexperience. (You can get by any-where with English!)

In many cases, the educationaladministration makes its approvalof such courses dependent onwhether they can be implementedusing the personnel already in the

school. There are no new jobsavailable; it is rare at present fornative-language teachers to betaken on. For parents and pupils,the attraction is to practise thelearned language in subjects otherthan those normally covered byforeign language teaching.

An early start

An early start to foreign languageteaching in the Grundschule hasbasically ceased to be an issue. TheCouncil of Europe has held a seriesof workshops in which delegatesfrom all the member countries pre-sented their models. The debate isno longer about whether or why,but how. In Germany, there was alarge-scale, well-documentedmodel trial back in the 1960s, but itwas not pursued further becauseno satisfactory solution was foundfor the transition fromGrundschule to Secondary LevelI. Firstly, the Gymnasium and theRealschule did not believe theGrundschule could teach lan-guages properly, and, secondly,they did not want to hand the earlystart over to the Grundschule,arguing that it was not worthwhile,since the head start from theGrundschule would be made upwithin two or three months. Theyalso argued that there would beorganisational problems, as specialclasses would have to be set up forthe children with advance know-ledge gained at Grundschule.

The new interest in learning for-eign languages has revitalised thediscussion about an early start."Learn your neighbour's language"in Baden-Wurttemberg a trialover several years involving Frenchat the Grundschule; a trial lastingseveral years on the question ofthe basic role of foreign languageteaching at the Grundschule usingEnglish, French and Italian inBavaria; another trial in Hamburg

1.9

entitled "English classes fromgrade 3"; the possibility throughoutHesse to start learning English orFrench at the Grundschule; simi-lar attempts in Lower Saxony; anearly start at schools throughoutMecklenburg-Western Pomerania;the encounter model in North-Rhine/Westphalia, and other pro-jects in Rhineland-Palatinate,Saxony, Saarland and SaxonyAnhalt all of these examplesdemonstrate the fresh interest inforeign language teaching at theGrundschule. Even so, the situa-tion is less than satisfactory. Thereare not enough Grundschuleteachers with training as foreignlanguage teachers. On the onehand, it costs money, and on theother, trained teachers are notbeing recruited. There is still afeeling that anyone can cope with"that little bit of English at theGrundschule", and that no specialtraining is needed. And there isstill a debate about the approach tobe taken: encounter versus results-orientation. Those on the one sideclaim that their approach is appro-priate for the children and thatresults-orientation is merely a sys-tematic course which has beenbrought forward from SecondaryLevel I; the others say that it isvery much possible to achieveresults at Grundschule level withplay-oriented forms of learning andworking, and that secondaryschools can build on these results;Lite encounter approach is said tobe non-committal, amateurish anda waste of valuable learning time.Why are children allowed to learnreading and writing and basicarithmetic at Grundschule, butonly to encounter the foreign lan-guage, even though they reallywant to learn? Language awarenessand sensitisation to other lan-guages, the chief objectives of theencounter model, can also beimparted in the results-orientedapproach.

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Basically, it is generally acceptedthat there should be an early startto foreign language learning; thiswas stated by the ministers of edu-cation in their position paper of1989. Despite this, they are notensuring the corresponding nation-wide availability, sometimes forunrelated reasons, e.g. there arenot enough Grundschule teachersaround who are trained as foreignlanguage teachers, but budget con-straints mean that the authoritiesdo not intend to set up appropriatecourses, or perhaps they are afraidof endangering the traditional roleof Latin. To some extent, it is alsodue to traditional top-down think-ing: universities are dissatisfiedwith the educational level of thestudents, the Gymnasium regardsitself as more valuable than theRealschule and the Grundschule;the Grundschule teachers view

themselves as being the betterteachers but fail to win the argu-ments because they considerthemselves less qualified on spe-cialist issues. They accept, albeitunwillingly, the lower ranking givento them by the others and fencethemselves off. Similar attitudescan be seen in the relationshipbetween schools and vocationaltraining facilities.

But this does the Grundschulean injustice: it has to work in diffi-cult conditions, its teachers areinappropriately trained for theirwork as language teachers, there isa lack of support in the form of fur-ther training and yet they aredoing good work. However, thedemand for European citizens ableto speak foreign languages willforce a change in the situation.Foreign languages will become acompulsory course for all pupils atthe Grundschule. But the transi-tional problems still need to be

.10

cleared up. In some Lander (e.g.Lower Saxony), a Grundschule isonly given permission to beginfrom grade 3 if cooperation withthe secondary schools has beenput in place. The problem-freetransition to which the children areentitled can only succeed if bothsides cooperate with and movetowards each other. This meansthat the Grundschule needs to seeits work in the context of the sub-sequent language teaching, andthat secondary schools need totake the working methods of theGrundschule into account and towork from this basis for a transi-tional period. The transition to sys-tematic teaching must be managedcarefully.

Teacher training

According to the official jargon,there are various types of teacher:teachers for the Grundschule orthe primary level, teachers for theprimary level and all or certainforms of schools at SecondaryLevel I, teachers for all or certainforms of secondary school, teach-ers for Secondary Level II (generalclasses) or for the Gymnasium,teachers for Secondary Level II(vocational subjects) or for thevocational schools, and, finally, -

teachers for children with specialneeds. Like so much in the Germanschool system, this arrangement ismost confusing and can only beunderstood in the light of the dif-ferent rules in the various Lander.To simplify matters, we can saythat there are Grundschule or pri-mary teachers whose training alsoallows them to teach at theGymnasium (Secondary Level I),there are teachers who are onlypermitted to teach in eitherSecondary Level I or II, and thereare teachers entitled to teach inboth Secondary Levels I and II. Allof this, of course, depends on therespective policy on schools.

Notwithstanding all the differ-ences, there is a certain degree ofuniformity: in all of the Lander,teacher training is divided betweena period of study at a university oran equivalent higher educationinstitution (the first phase) and aperiod of practical teacher training(the second phase, the preparatoryservice).

The first training phase (at theuniversity/higher education institu-tion) consists of:

a section devoted to the special-ist subjects, including the didacticsof the subjects; the study mustcover at least two subjects orgroups of subjects;

a section devoted to educationalscience, with compulsory coursesin pedagogics and psychology;there are also further aspects, suchas philosophy, social sciences/poli-tics, theology;

concomitant periods of practicaltraining in schools lasting severalweeks.

Minimum standards apply to thestudy phase, in the form of standardperiods of study and numbers ofclasses per week (decisions by theStanding Conference of EducationMinisters in 1994, 1995 and 1997).There are specific courses for eachof the different types of teacher,and these are designed and man-aged by the university in coordina-tion with the science ministry. ForGymnasium teachers, the follow-ing rules apply:i

All these courses are followed bya second phase, the preparatoryservice. The time spent on thisvaries between 18 and 24 months,depending on the Land and on thetype of school involved. It consistsof periods of teaching at schools, ofteaching under instruction andindependently at training schools,and of pedagogical (usually week-ly) and subject-related didacticseminars (alternately every twoweeks per subject), in which the

"The training ... shall take the form of nine semesters`of study with a total of about 160 hours of classes persemester in at least two subjects, including subject-related didactics. The study shall be oriented towardsthe whole academic breadth of the subjects in ques-tion, and shall aim to develop an ability to penetratecomplex constructs and to work on an interdisciplinarybasis. The study shall include several weeks of practicalteaching experience; it shall include at least one practi-cal period of didactics or subject-related didactics."

(Quoted from "Das Bildungswesen in des,,Burierffehilblir-Detitschiand---Darstellurig der'aiiipetenzen, Strukturen and bil-

dungspolitischen Entwicklungen kir den lnformationsaustausch inder Europaischen Union" (The education system in the FederalRepublic of Germany presentation of the responsibilities, struc-tures and educational policy developments for the exchange ofinformation in the European Union); Secretariat of the StandingConference of Education Ministers (ed.), Bonn 1997)

The study is expected:to be oriented towards the acad-

emic subjects and methods neededby a teacher;

to be oriented not only towardsthe specialist subject, but also tothe sciences of teaching and learn-ing in institutionalised contextsand the sciences of teaching andlearning specific subjects;

to provide the future languageteachers with a high degree offunctional linguistic skills;

to provide practice in the keyoccupational skills of teamwork,communication skills, independentknowledge acquisition, and inde-pendent learning.

h.

experience gained in practice isprocessed and deepened.Specifically, the following abilitiesand knowledge are to be learned:

fluency in the foreign languageand metalinguistic knowledge,

profound knowledge of teachingand learning processes relating toforeign languages, of role behav-iour and interaction in foreign lan-guage lessons,

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21

thorough knowledge of socio-lin-guistic and pragma-linguisticaspects of the language and its use,

thorough knowledge of variousaspects of applied linguistics,

knowledge of the people, geog-raphy and culture of the countriesin which the target language is spo-ken,

awareness that language acquisi-tion is a slow and gradual processinvolving the whole of the pupil'spersonality in which mistakes arenormal and useful,

ability to select and procureteaching materials, including theindependent production of materi-als for exercises in communicativeskills in the foreign language,

knowledge of the interdiscipli-nary references of the foreign lan-guage classes,

knowledge of research in thefield of language acquisition.

That is the external frameworkof the training for all types ofteacher; it is impressive in terms ofthe length of training and the con-tent involved; really, there shouldbe no deficiencies. Nevertheless,there are inadequacies in the train-ing. A simple comparison of thecontent of the first and secondphases shows that the universityobviously fails to cover everything.It fails to provide sufficient ground-ing in subject-related didactics,language skills are frequently inad-equate, the training in the special-ist subject neglects issues that areof relevance for the school or forimplementation in the classroomeven though the majority of stu-dents of philology wish to go on toteach. This does not mean that theuniversity staff teaching the spe-cialist subject should give up theirown interests, but they should atleast ask how the foreign languageteacher in the classroom can usethe content of the specialist train-ing they have received. The univer-sities train literary specialists andtextual linguists who, in view oftheir training, will teach their sub-ject as though their pupils will goon to be literary specialists and lin-guists themselves. There are goodreasons why the educational

administrations rarely invite acade-mics from the relevant subject tohelp draw up the guidelines for asubject: they cannot or do not wantto adapt their thinking to the needsof the schools. Those academicsspecialising in subject-relateddidactics are too taken up withproving how scientific their work isto the academics from the subjectitself, and this deflects them fromthe realities of the classroom theyare supposed to be preparing peo-ple for. This often manifests itselfin highly theoretical publicationswhich are rejected or ignored bythe practitioners. At the sametime, it is true that nothing is clos-er to practice than a good theory,although the teachers prefer not tobelieve that. The greatest deficien-cy in the training of the teachers,however, is that those involveduniversity, study and training semi-nars, training school do notregard teacher training as a com-mon task, and therefore do notcooperate with one another.Mentors at schools are not usuallygiven any training, but they areexpected to look after and advisethose doing practical teacher train-ing. As a result, some of those whounderstand the situation correctlysay:

Entire areas are missing fromthe training and are not mentionedin the 10 points regarding thetraining of foreign language teach-ers either (see above): multilin-gualism, bilingual teaching, helptowards self-organised learning,new role of the teacher as advisoron learning, intercultural educa-tion, design of school programmes,treatment of literature and thepractical side of language learning,reflection on one's ownactions/self-observation, lateral for-eign language learning, etc. Andthere is no mention at all of theskills needed by the instructor; it issimply assumed that they are pos-sessed by university staff and train-ers at seminars. It is not enough tobe a good specialist academic orspecialist in didactics with (orsometimes without) classroomexperience: the particular abilitiesof an instructor do not developautomatically, but have to belearned and acquired. Despite allthis, the training of foreign lan-guage teachers is still of a highquality and creates teachers whoare sure of themselves and of theirsubject sometimes a little toosure. That occasionally stops themdeveloping further.

"Training of foreign language teachers at university isundergoing a crisis. It is obsolete and meets neitherwhat society demands from the schools, nor what theschools demand from their future foreign languageteachers. If the training of foreign language teachers atuniversities is to fulfil the need for an academicallywell-grounded training of language teachers whomust increasingly also teach the cultural side funda-mental changes are needed."

(Quoted-from-',44)-Thesefr±17FR'efol-Weler universitarenFremdsprachenlehrerausbildung" (10 points regarding the reformof university training for foreign language teachers) of the GermanSociety for Foreign Language Research, the Association of ModernForeign Languages, and the Society for Applied Linguistics,September 1997)

9 2

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Furthpr training forteachers

Without ongoing further trainingfor the people involved, no systemcan respond adequately to changesin requirements. Germany has along history of further trainingwhich reaches back into the 19thcentury, when associations ofteachers and universities endeav-oured to deepen the knowledgeacquired in initial training and toadapt it to a changing society.There is a statutory requirementfor all teachers to receive furthertraining, although this does nothave to occur through participationat courses put on by the state, butcan also take the form of indepen-dent reading, e.g. of specialist jour-nals.

Today, the state in particularprovides its teachers with a lot ofopportunities for further training.All of the Lander, who are respon-sible for further training for teach-ers, have their own central institu-tions for this purpose. There arealso regional further training cours-es, events put on by the schoolssupervisory service (e.g. whenintroducing new guidelines orexamination rules) and in-school

further training, for which theschools have a quota (of two tothree days per school year), whichthey dispose of themselves for dis-cussions of school-specific issuesand problems, e.g. interlingualcooperation, interdisciplinary pro-ject work involving the foreign lan-guages, the designing of bilingualcourses, etc. The central Landerinstitutions also organise coursesabroad. Lower Saxony, for exam-ple, has for many years offered fur-ther training in the United States,as well as language training cours-es in Britain and France. Mentionshould also be made of the coursesoffered under the EU's LINGUA/SOCRATES programmes. A num-ber of teachers have visited othercountries, taken part in trainingprogrammes or participated withtheir counterparts from othercountries in joint, multilateral pro-jects oriented towards interculturalaspects or towards the society andculture of a certain country.

All teachers in state schools areentitled to receive further training.Their participation is governed bycertain procedures, and particularefforts are made to ensure that theavailability of lessons at schooldoes not suffer. This is necessarybecause further training takesplace almost exclusively duringschool hours. Attempts by the

administration to encourage teach-ers to attend further training out-side school hours have met with agreat deal of opposition from theteachers and their associations.Like all civil servants, teachershave a right to 30-32 days' holiday.Wherever school holidays lastlonger than that, the teachers areconsidered to have a teaching-freeperiod. In that period, they cancertainly be required to work bytheir employers.

It is estimated that on average atmost 10-12 % of all teachers par-ticipate in centrally-run furthertraining, partly because there is alack of funding to expand thecourses, but mainly because atten-dance is voluntary. No-one can beforced to take part, even if ateacher lacks some of the abilitieshe needs. It is possible to point outto a teacher that his skills in a for-eign language are inadequate, andurgently recommend that heattend a course abroad, but he can-not be forced to do so. It is up tothe individual teacher to judge howbest to overcome his own inade-quacy. This is related to the wayteachers view their role and to thetradition of teacher training: afteruniversity and study seminars, ateacher is quite simply fully quali-fied and is therefore not in need ofany further perfection. The aware-

ness of the importance of keepingup to date with developments isnot as widespread amongst teach-ers as in other occupations. At thesame time, language skills erodefaster than anyone can feel com-fortable with. After years of class-room work, the language of theteacher approximates that of hispupils, and anyone who has nothad the chance to take anOberstufe course for a consider-able period (and this is unfortu-nately frequently the case withFrench, due to lack of demand),will find that his foreign languageskills are fatally damaged by thisforced abstinence. Innovative fur-ther training concepts are urgentlyneeded if teachers are to be pre-pared for the new challenges and ifstandards are to be kept up; lack ofmoney renders such new effortsunlikely.

Multilingualismand the positionof English

Multilingualism has really alwaysbeen a feature of German schools,albeit with certain limitations. Informer times, the two foreign lan-guages always taught atGymnasium included Latin and/orGreek. Latin still plays a certainrole today.

Nowadays, multilingualism isused to mean the knowledge ofseveral modern languages. It istrue that more pupils learn a livinglanguage today than 20 or 25 yearsago, but almost all are learningEnglish. A large group of pupils isstill denied the chance to learn asecond foreign language, and manyof those learning a second lan-

guage choose it from a group ofpossible subjects for pupils whowish to move from the Realschuleto the Oberstufe of theGymnasium. Lessons in two lan-guages are not available to all, andnot even to many, but only to thoseattending a Gymnasium. Othersare excluded, partly because thereis no teaching method tailored totheir needs. One example is peoplereceiving vocational training, who,as has been proven, are very muchable to take up and successfullylearn a new language at the voca-tional school if it is taught in anappropriate way. And just as thosereceiving vocational training learndifferently from the pupils at aGymnasium, who have a longperiod of training in thinking interms of abstract rules which, withassistance, they are able to transferfrom one language to another,Hauptschule pupils learn different-ly from those at Grundschule , andpupils in Secondary Level I learndifferently again from those in theOberstufe.

The concept of multilingualismhas become more relevant due tothe emerging European Union andthe need for broader sections ofthe population to understand oneanother across national borders.Despite the fact that English nowhas a prominent role in the canonof school languages (96 % of allpupils in Germany learn English!),experts believe that Europe willnot become monolingual. The con-cept of a separation between onelanguage for work and for publiclife, and another language (themother tongue) for private life, isnot very attractive, but has, alas,already become a reality to someextent. In the Netherlands, it is notpossible to study medicine inDutch, but only in English, becauseit is not worthwhile printing text-books in Dutch for the limitednumber of medical students. In acase before the European Court ofJustice, the complaint lodged by aGerman teacher against her Landgovernment was considered inEnglish. The two parties bothresident in the same German Land

had to make their written sub-missions in English. There is cer-tainly a danger of one languagebeing forced on everyone.

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Since this situation has alreadybecome a reality, two scenarios arefeasible. Either all the linguisticcommunities agree on a linguafranca for use in cross-bordercooperation or international set-tings. National languages becomeregional languages for use afteroffice hours. For Europe, and theEuropean understanding of itself,such a levelling-down to a singlelanguage would not be desirable,and it would not be politically fea-sible in view of the independentcultural history of the memberstates which manifests itself intheir languages. Countries will notbe prepared to give up their ownunmistakable identity. Or, in addi-tion to the one common language(the second language), there iscompulsory teaching of a balancedpackage of further languagestogether with a range of instru-ments enabling the individuallearner to acquire further foreignlanguages on his own if necessary.That is the concept of multilingual-ism. The concept is broadlydefined today: multilingualism notonly refers to the traditional stockof foreign languages offered atschool, but expressly aims at agreater variety of language teach-ing, i.e. at a diversification coupledwith an improvement in theoptions open to the pupils, withlanguages like Arabic, Japaneseand Chinese also being included. Adiversification of available courseswould make it possible for everyform of secondary education toinclude a choice of more foreign

languages. This is in line with theproposal from the Council ofEurope to establish a LanguagePortfolio listing all foreign languageskills acquired from institutionaleducation plus those gained fromperiods spent abroad or in otherways, thereby creating an individ-ual foreign language profile.

Because 16 separate Lander areresponsible, it is not easy to imple-ment the diversification. TheHamburg Agreement attempts tostrike a balance between pluralityand the necessary uniformity andinternal compatibility of the sys-tem. Different interpretations ofthe agreement have resulted in arelatively diverse availability of for-eign languages at schools. Butthere are certain limits which blockan absolute diversification and acompletely free choice of lan-guages. The factors include the sig-nificance of a language in the world(English, Spanish, Portuguese),national interests (English,French) and regional interests inborder areas (Dutch, Danish,Czech, Polish). Political and histor-ical developments and treaties andensuing cultural agreements grantpriority to certain languages or atleast ensure them a secure place inthe canon of foreign languages. Forexample, the Franco-GermanTreaty and the Franco-GermanCultural Agreement stipulate thepromotion of the partner country'slanguage (although this has notpi e vel iced the decline in teachingof French and German respective-ly). Finally, the locality of a school,the way it is organised (availabilityof trained teachers) and the legis-lation governing schools have to beborne in mind. There is a need fora practical compromise betweenthe desire for greater variety onthe one hand and the constraintsarising from the need for uniformi-ty and internal compatibility in theGerman school system on theother. All of the Lander areattempting to provide specialcourses to meet the demand. In

North-Rhine/Westphalia, a majorproject entitled "Ways toMultilingualism" has been initiated;in Bavaria, there are the Europeanschools with their greater promi-nence for foreign languages; inLower Saxony and North-Rhine/Westphalia, teaching ofDutch has been particularly boost-ed because of the proximity to theNetherlands; there are Polish-German schools along the borderin Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony.

The situation is developing.Diversification and the formationof individual profiles could beachieved via different possibilitiesfor language combinations and amore flexible order of languages.English does not always have to bethe first foreign language, andrelated languages could be taughttogether or sequentially here, itcould make sense to include theancient languages (LatinFrench/English; or Latin/Spanish/English and perhaps French).However, because of the signifi-cance of English, every pupil willhave to learn it at some point atschool; but it does not have to bethe first foreign language and betaught over 9 years. If there is tobe diversification, there is need foran earlier start on foreign languagelearning, an earlier start on learn-ing the second/third language, anda reduction in long-term courses;with a limited quota of lessons, theway they are distributed amongstthe individual languages needs tobe rethought.

In parallel to this, it is of coursealso necessary to review the con-tent of the courses; some aspectsare an important element of thecourse, others have been added onand should be cut out. Someaspects can be combined: of coursepupils can still interpret literaturewhilst learning language skillswhich will be useful at work.Partial competence in the so-calledthird and fourth languages expandsthe communicative possibilities

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and also contributes towards diver-sification and multilingualism.Partial competence is becomingmore and more attractive, particu-larly amongst the staff working ininternational organisations and oninternational cooperation. One can-not fully learn all languages; nor isthere a need to do so. But thismeans that the learning of lan-guages itself must be taught, sothat a learner can expand his par-tial competence on his own if needbe. Viewed in this way, teachingpeople to organise and takeresponsibility for their own learn-ing is a path towards multilingual-ism. Implementing multilingualismis not as simple as it sounds here.Pupils, the "other" partners in lan-guage acquisition, are not neces-sarily prepared to learn more for-eign languages, even though thereis certainly an understanding oftheir general value and usefulness.Many want languages for the pur-pose of communication in othersubjects. For this reason, the prac-tical use of language learningneeds to be made more obvious.Also, pupils suspect that anincrease the number of conditionsattached to foreign language learn-ing will affect the assessment oftheir performance, and here theyare particularly thinking of thenature of correction and grading oflanguage skills. It is certainly truethat the assessment procedurescurrently in place tend to discour-age rather than to motivate, andthey also mean that the learning ofadditional foreign languages canincrease the danger of failure atschool. Nor can one overlook thefact that some of the decisions bythe educational administrationsrun counter to the desired multilin-gualism. If only one foreign lan-guage is compulsory in the Abitur,pupils will usually go for English.

1. General (non-vocational) schools (Secondary Level I and II)

only western Lander western and eastern Lander

Total pupils

1982

5,604,064

1993

5,532,336

1994

5,638,468

Of these, the following learned the following language as a first oradditional foreign language:

English 5,241,211/93.53% 5,281,598/95.47% 5,409,568/95.94%French 1,403,013/25.04% 1,306,637/23.62% 1,382,437/24.52%Latin 805,283/14.37% 597,765/10.80% 613,215/10.88%Greek 27,837/0.50% 14,616/0.26% 13,977/0.25%Russian 23,023/0.41% 422,665/7.64% 316,368/5.61%Spanish 29,685/0.53% 50,576/0.91 % 57,789/1.02%Italian 7,772/0.14% 14,696/0.27% 18,914/0.34%others 21,238/0.38% 27,017/0.49% 18,635/0.33%

2. Vocational schools

only western Lander western and eastern Lander

Total pupils

1982

2,596,389

1993

2,446,961

1994

2,425,138

Of these, the following learned the following language as a first oradditional foreign language:

English 497,476/19.16% 586,525/23.97% 618,932/25.52%French 77,346/2.98% 85,768/3.51% 81,582/3.36%Latin 1,133/0.04% 1,228/0.05% 1,002/0.04%Greek 43/0.00% 13/0.00% 28/0.00%Russian 495/0.02% 12,637/0.52% 14,430/0.60%Spanish 27,525/1.06% 35,291/1.44% 39,772/1.64%Italian 310/0.01% 335/0.01% 1,468/0.06%others 1,641/0.06% 1,001/0.04% 2,217/0.09%

(Statistics from the Secretariat of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers,22 May 1996; order slightly changed)

There is a need for a new didac-tic approach aiming less at distinc-tions and more at correspondencebetween the methodologies usedfor the various languages. Englishneeds to assume a sort of prepara-tory function for the learning ofother languages, and the latterthen need to respond to this appro-priately. This is what is meant by"lateral language learning", whichis oriented towards commonalitiesin the learning of different lan-guages and towards mutual sup-port. Here, too, the general planalready mentioned above would beof vital assistance. Various callshave been made for such a plan; ithas been commissioned from the

European language boards andinternational federations of associ-ations of language teachers, whichalso include German languageteachers' associations. However,given Germany's federal structure,no such plan can be expected inthe foreseeable future.

English is probably the most-learned language, and many peopleuse it to speak to one another, tonegotiate, to clarify matters. Inhighly specialised fields, English isindispensable in terms of world-wide scientific cooperation, sincethose involved wish to communi-cate rapidly beyond national andlinguistic borders. In commerce,too, English has generally becomeestablished as a lingua franca;major aspects of European unifica-tion are also taking place inEnglish. The great efforts being

made to foster the other Europeanlanguages, the langues modimes(langues moires diffusdes etmoires enseignees), with costlysupport programmes, have notaltered this at all.

This has also had an impact onforeign language teaching inGermany. The statistics presentedhere demonstrate the dominanceof English all too clearly; the otherlanguages are right to complainabout this, particularly when multi-lingualism is officially propagatedbut the concomitant administrativesupport in the form of decrees islacking or when educational policydecisions by the education min-istries give priority to one lan-guage, e.g. by stipulating that onlyone language has to be studied forthe Abitur. The pupils then opt forEnglish. The fact that only oneschool in a city the size ofthisseldorf actually put on aLeistungskurs (intensive Abiturcourse) for French should be causefor reflection.

It would of course be ridiculousnot to meet the general desire forEnglish teaching: every pupil hasto learn English, there is no escap-ing that. But: what will become ofthe other languages, what happensto the mother tongue? Because ofthe large number of native speak-ers, German is not a langue mod-ime according to the EU definition.Even so, German only comesfourth in the list of taught andlearned languages, behind English,French and Spanish. What willbecome of the other languages, thereal langues modimes such asDanish, Swedish, Dutch or Italian?And what role will be played bylanguages like Polish, Russian orCzech? Will they all become lan-guages of less value for generalcommunication in Europe?

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De facto, English is already thelingua franca in Europe. Sooneror later, English will be used as aworking language at all levels ofcross-border cooperation in theEU. This has consequences whichare overlooked by most of theadvocates of English: will Germanthen still be a language in whichone can or may communicate withothers in internationally operatingcompanies or organisations? Whystill learn Danish or Dutch, or evenFrench? All this may be practical,but what cultural individuality andvariety is lost? In European net-works, the (almost) exclusive useof English has many materialrepercussions, because a languagealways also transports culture-spe-cific content. Ultimately, it is also aquestion of what yardsticks, atti-tudes and modes of thought are toapply in future. A role is alsoplayed by the fact that, if English isa lingua franca, those who speakit as their mother tongue have anot insubstantial advantage innegotiations, agreements andtreaties.

In Germany, as opposed to thesmaller EU member states, thequestion of a lingua franca is notregarded as a great threat, becausepeople (still) feel fairly safe in viewof the large number of Germannative speakers, and this opinion isshared by the education policy-makers. For the schools adminis-tration, of course, English as onelanguage for all would be practicaland save money; less so at generalschools, but certainly in the field ofvocational training. People can goon to learn other languages afterleaving school. More people arealready learning foreign languagesoutside schools than in the institu-tionalised system. Recently, the

number of sceptical voices hasbeen increasing, although this hasnot so much been about the ques-tion of whether a lingua franca isuseful and sensible or not, andmore about the risk of losing cul-tural diversity and how to counterthis risk.

The official position, of course,is in favour of multilingualism. Inthe eyes of many teachers, howev-er, certain decrees and measuresunofficially or implicitly strengthenthe position of one language to thedetriment of the others, and this isconfirmed by representatives ofthe ministries, the schools supervi-sory service and the research insti-tutes from all of the Lander. Thenarrowing of the choice of lan-guages available and of languagelearning can also be observed else-where. The Federal ForeignLanguages Competition for pupilsat Secondary Levels I and II, forexample, neglects the less studiedlanguages (Russian, Japanese,Chinese, Arabic), even though itexists to promote the learning oflanguages per se. At the insistenceof the Federal Government, theother languages are either margin-alised or ignored but the compe-tition does include Latin. There aregood reasons why people are call-ing for linguistic ecology. This callparticularly represents a task forthe didactics of English teaching: ifit is right and useful to support thevariety of European languages andcultures, English must not suffo-cate all the other languages. Forthis reason, methodologies need tobe developed for English teachingwhich leave room for the other lan-guages. English lessons must pre-pare and support the learning ofother languages.

So English lessons will have tochange. If English is used more andmore as a lingua franca, shouldnot the traditional social and cul-tural topics at least be supplement-ed by intensive communicative

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training and the discussion of theproblems and strategies which areof relevance for communication ingeneral, not least with non-nativeEnglish speakers? Should not a cul-turally neutral English be taughtsomething that will necessarilyimpact on the linguistic data to betaught and learned? Is the teachingof the culturally typical use ofidioms still necessary? Can onedeviate from the specific Britishuse of the English language, aslong as the message remains clear?Training in intercultural skills thenacquires a different emphasis: whatintercultural skills are needed fornegotiations between non-nativeEnglish speakers from variouscountries, and do they need to betaught?

These are important fields fordidactic research which should beparticularly studied during initialteacher training.

EUprogrammes theirimpact on foreign lan-guage

It is reported that one of thefounding fathers of the EuropeanCommunities, which were initiallyestablished just as an economicand a coal and steel community,groaned years later that, had heknown what difficulties Europeanunification would Pntail, he wouldhave started with unification in thesphere of education. That soundsvery pessimistic, but is quiteunderstandable.

Despite the talk of a Europeandimension, the education systemsin particular are still very muchdominated by thinking in nationalcategories. This also applies to theforeign language teaching of themember states: the interests of themembers vary. The smaller lan-guages know that they only play aminor role in the concert ofEuropean languages. That is clearsimply from the figures: 5 million

Danes, 7 million Swedes againstthe rest of the Union! For thesecountries, language learning is asine qua non. That mainly impliesEnglish plus one or maybe twoother languages. The situation inSpain is similar. Germany, the lan-guage of the EU country with thelargest population, plays only asubordinate role to English andFrench. In Britain, the questionasked is different again: English istaught in all the countries; teachersand pupils alike want to come toBritain to practise. English teach-ing is a booming industry and animportant commercial product.Learning other languages is there-fore not of essential significance.

European unification, however,depends very much on whetherpeople negotiate common prob-lems and find mutually acceptablesolutions. That cannot happenwithout language. In a moderncompany, communication betweendifferent teams is essential to cor-porate success, and the same goesfor European unification. There isno area of European life wherethere is no need to hammer outcommon interests, mutual under-standing and compromises. Thatcannot work without knowledge ofthe other side, i.e. it cannot workwithout education. Economic inter-ests let people work together aslong as both sides derive a benefit;afterwards, the tie is cut. ForEurope and the formation of aEuropean identity, loose contactsare not enough. It is necessary tomove closer together, to give some-thing of oneself to the others, andto receive something in exchange.That is no easy task, particularly inthe field of education. Education isan essential element of nationalculture and identity, more thancommerce or driving on the left.

Anyone who has worked on a mul-tilateral educational programme ofthe EU knows how much effort isneeded to jump these hurdles ofnational identity. This is also oneelement of Germany's problemswith a voice for the EU in educa-tional matters. Other memberstates take a similar view. That iswhy the concept of subsidiarity hasbeen particularly effective in thesphere of education.

So if one wants Europe, thenational identities must be broughtcloser together, which does notmean giving up individual culturalidentities, and the future citizensmust be educated appropriately,which in turn means bringing theeducational systems and coursecontent closer together. Ultimately,education will be in a position topermit an awareness of a commonEurope and a common Europeanidentity to form and develop. Andthis necessitates understanding,i.e. a knowledge of foreign lan-guages. A knowledge of foreignlanguages is the key to other cul-tures.

As part of the preparations forthe German EU Presidency in thesecond half of 1989, the StandingConference of Education Ministersdrafted a "Position paper on EUeducational and cultural policy"(decision by the StandingConference dated 24 April 1989),in which a particular emphasis wasplaced on greater support for for-eign languages. The calls made inthe paper include: foreign languageteaching in kindergartens and atprimary schools, an earlier start toteaching in the second foreign lan-guage, lessons in two foreign lan-guages for as many pupils as possi-ble (a call backed by the EuropeanCommission: two foreign languagesfor as many European citizens aspossible), an expansion of theavailability of foreign languageteaching with lessons in a third lan-guage, availability of courses withlimited objectives in further foreignlanguages, more information abouthistory, culture, politics and eco-nomics in the partner countries.

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The European Commissionquickly recognised the significanceof foreign languages as an impor-tant element of general educationfor European citizens. Key aspectsof its policy include the freedom ofmovement of EU citizens (as guar-anteed in the EC Treaty), the free-dom to choose where to live andwork, the freedom to take part ineducational courses in all memberstates, and mutual recognition ofdiplomas and qualifications. It hastherefore stated its views in aseries of declarations on the role offoreign language teaching forEuropean unification. This fed intothe Council decision of 28 July1989 on an action programme topromote foreign language skills inthe European Community (LIN-GUA). This programme, which wasallocated ECU 200 million, wasintended, inter alia, to promote fur-ther training abroad for languageteachers, the development of net-works, e.g. of educational institu-tions and establishments offeringfurther training for teachers, and,not least, exchanges for young peo-

ple. At the European conferenceon foreign language learning heldin Bonn in November 1994, threekey points were retained as thefindings:

over the past five years, the LIN-GUA programme has sparked offan intensive debate on the role offoreign languages in Europe, hasprovided an important stimulus forhigher quality language teaching,and has made a wide section of thepublic aware of the growing signifi-cance of foreign language skills;

the programme has enabledmany students, pupils and teachersto take part in exchanges andencounter projects, and LINGUAhas given a large number of peoplereceiving vocational training theirfirst chance to encounter foreignlanguages and foreign culturesdirectly;

the reports of those taking partshow how the exchanges havealtered attitudes and feelings aboutneighbours, and this is of far-reach-

ing significance in terms of educa-tional and social policy.

The impact of the LINGUA pro-gramme is indeed far-reaching andirreversible. The debate about thevalue of foreign languages was con-ducted on a broad basis inGermany in the media, at congress-es and in fora and hearings, andnot only by specialists.Representatives of industry, gov-ernment and parliament (thedebate on making Germany com-petitive), the business associations,the regional chambers, the Landerboards of parents and theAssociation of Lander parent bod-ies in Germany (the FederalParents' Council) spoke up andcalled for further development offoreign language teaching. Inresponse to a report by the mem-bers of the German delegation onthe LINGUA monitoring commit-tee, the schools committee of theStanding Conference of EducationMinisters commissioned an exper-tise.

This expertise has now had aclear impact, not least because thepressure from the population,industry and commerce demandedchanges and improvements: for-eign languages should be taught insuch a way that they serve not onlythe understanding of literature, butalso the treatment of other tech-nical, economic, legal, general cul-tural issues. All of the Landerare working on new principles forlanguage teaching. Universities arebeginning to think about the initialtraining of the future languageteachers. Congresses, such as therecent international congress onforeign languages in Luxembourg,and regional meetings in theLander, are looking into basic poli-cy questions of language teachingand its ongoing development.

In this context, mention shouldbe made of the EU mobility pro-grammes, both the LINGUA pro-gramme (which is now continuingin the form of the SOCRATES pro-gramme) and LEONARDO, whichwas specially designed for voca-tional training. According to thefigures from the reports on

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European Commission activities,some 11,550 teachers took part infurther training in other EU coun-tries from 1990/91 to 1997/98. Inthe same period, the languageskills of some 15,028 Germanyoung people, most of them invocational training, have benefitedfrom periods spent abroad underthe programmes and through workon joint projects with young peoplefrom other EU countries. This hashad an impact and has brought var-ious changes, often unnoticed bythe administration. People haveseen that other countries also havegood language teaching andachieve presentable results, thatmaterials are better than at home,that developments in some areasare further advanced in othercountries than in Germany inother words, people have seen thatthe foreign language teaching inGermany is not the last word. Thisexperience has also had an impactin the classroom itself: in manyways, as teachers compare them-selves with what they see in othercountries and review their ownstandpoint, they have becomemore open to things outside theirprevious narrower experience.Also, innumerable contacts havebeen established between languageteachers from the member stateswho met at further training coursesor when preparing and implement-ing pedagogical projects. It has alsobeen demonstrated that youngpeople in vocational training cer-tainly can learn French and otherlanguages if they are taught usingappropriate methods. Joint workwith young people from other

countries on a project which corre-sponds to their vocational interestsmotivates people to use the foreignlanguage and arouses curiosity for"more language".

In general, it can be seen howthe young people growing up noware much more relaxed and naturalin their contacts with their con-temporaries from other countries;Europe and a community with oth-ers in the European Union is veryclose and real to them. The causeof this lies not only in the youngpeople's many shared interests incomputers, pop music and fashion,but also in joint youth schemeswith France and Poland, in themany opportunities to meet viaschool partnerships, in the net-works and partnerships via e-mailand the Internet, but also in theimproved direct understanding,even if this primarily occurs inEnglish.

Meeting other people from othercountries in their own culturalenvironment is very important, anddoing things together createsinsights and an understandingwhich a tourist can rarely gain. It isnot always easy to take a detachedview of oneself and one's own val-ues, but in doing so one learnswhat problems arise in intercultur-al communication. At the sametime, one grasps the need for andthe right approach to preparingyoung people for this in the class-room. The passages quoted abovefrom the conference report clearlyhighlight this European addedvalue.

This has also resulted in a newattitude to foreign language teach-ing: the pure background informa-tion about culture and society, theknowledge about the institutionsand the patterns of real life inanother country are necessary andimportant, but are no longer suffi-cient. Intercultural communicationrequires specific help on personaland linguistic behaviour. Calling fortolerance and empathy alone is

inadequate. Intercultural educationis a difficult but necessary task,and foreign language teaching can-not escape this challenge, simplybecause of the change in perspec-tive that goes hand in hand withforeign language learning. Thedidactic debate is indeed increas-ingly focusing on this issue. TheEU education and mobility pro-grammes have clearly made peopleaware of this aspect.

Correction and assessmentgrades, examinations,

control of standards

Foreign language learning is alsoregrettably subject to the

demands of correction and mark-ing. Correction alone is primarilyjust one element of classroomwork: the learner's use of the lan-guage is corrected in order to raisehim to the next level of learning, atwhich level correction againaspires to improve his skills. Fromthis perspective, correction is ahelpful and useful teaching instru-ment. The role of correction as abasis for grading performance via asystem of marks is only a sec-ondary one.

This is where the problemsbegin: what is correct, what iswrong, what is acceptable andwhat is not? Non-native speakerstend to concentrate on things thatcan be looked up (vocabulary andsyntax). They look less at idiomaticexpression and everyday languageuse, whereas native speakers tendto focus on these latter aspects: wedon't say it like that: you need tosay this to express your meaning.What is the yardstick to be? Errorsof formal grammar are easier toidentify; they can be clarified. Buta sequence of grammatically cor-rect sentences does not necessarilyproduce good English or French. Inthe written work of advancedlearners, the real weaknesseswhich lessen the value of the workrelate not to formal grammar but towhat, in their suggestions aboutcorrections, the UniformExamination Requirements term"expressive power".

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One association of languageteachers, the German GeneralAssociation of Modern Philologists(now called the Association ofModern Foreign Languages), hasfor many years kept statistics onthe results of Abitur examinationsin the various subjects. The statis-tics show that modern languagesusually come behind Latin and theexact sciences. It is easy to seewhy this is so: for all types of lin-guistic activity, all essential aspectsof communication linguistic(vocabulary, syntax, usage), dis-cursive and strategic (e.g. register,order, approach, etc.) and situa-tional and socio-cultural aspects(who is being spoken to, in whatsituation?) have to be masteredin order to respond appropriatelyto a situation. You can get by with-out the gerund or the subjunctive,but you then lose essential commu-nicative possibilities. Furthersources of errors and misunder-standings are contained in therespective situation and in under-standing the interlocutor.Corrections in schools have mainlyconcentrated on the formal gram-matical side. If it's wrong, it'sbecause the grammar books say so,or because the way the word isused in the text does not corre-spond to the entry in the dictio-nary. The normal signs used inGermany to indicate errors (Gr =grammar; T = tense; WSt = posi-tion of word; Vok = vocabulary;Prap = preposition) correspond tothis. And then the errors are tottedup: 10 items out of 20 are wrong(in a test), or there are 30 errors in1000 words, producing a markwhich places the work in the mid-dle or higher or lower in the scaleof grades. Consciously or uncon-sciously, pedagogical considera-tions also play a part: after threeweeks of work on the gerund andmany exercises, a teacher will nat-urally be disappointed or even per-sonally insulted if mistakes are stillbeing made. Use is still made of across or a double minus on the

paper by way of punishment. Anderrors of elementary grammar (e.g.a missing "-s" in the third personsingular in English, wrong forma-tion of participles from irregularverbs in French, words in thewrong position) are also assessedin the same way. Yet all linguisticerrors are actually equal: it isteaching itself that makes themmore or less serious. If teaching isbased more on the communicativeapproach, then grammatical errorsmay be annoying, but as long asthe message gets across, they areless significant. At the same time,false relations, changes of tense,links, references to previous orensuing sentences, and connectorsbecome more important. In otherwords, those aspects which trans-form a series of individual sen-tences into a text. Depending onthe expectations against which atext or language use is measuredand corrected, the result will vary.As a rule, pupils do worse whenthe assessment is mainly based onformal grammatical aspects. Thatexplains why pupils hesitate tolearn additional foreign languageswhen they can get away with one.It also explains why they give pref-erence to English, which is suppos-edly so much easier than other lan-guages.

And there is another point: nophilologist likes to be shown thathe has missed or wrongly correct-ed an error. He will follow the mat-ter up and search through gram-mar books which pupils do nothave access to and which have notbeen used in the classroom.Controls exercised by a colleaguefor the final examinations are oftenhampered by conflicting views onhow correct a linguistic expressionis. Finally, teachers do not wanttheir classes to appear in a badlight and occasionally close one oreven both eyes to mistakes.

The performance of pupils isexpressed in reports six-monthlyreports, reports at the end of theschool year, school-leaving reports,Abitur reports in the form ofgrades stipulated and defined inthe Hamburg Agreement of 1964.The grades range from Very Good(= 1, when the performance is wellabove the required standard), toGood (= 2, when the performancefully meets the required standard),Satisfactory (= 3, when the per-formance on the whole meets therequired standard), Adequate (=4, when the performance containsdeficiencies, but on the whole stillmeets the required standard), toPoor (= 5, when the performancefails to meet the required standardbut indicates that the necessarybasic knowledge exists and thatthe deficiencies can be removed ina foreseeable period) and Verypoor (= 6, when the performancefails to meet the required standardand indicates that even the basicknowledge is so fragmentary thatthe deficiencies cannot be removedin a foreseeable period).

The award of grades dependsvery much on the linguistic abilitiesof the teacher (because he is lin-guistically competent, he seesmore errors and wrong expressionsthan others) and his attitude tolanguage teaching (more grammar-based, or more communicative). Ittherefore always represents a sub-jective assessment, with the classaverage, the attitude to learningand the abilities of the group play-ing a role. There is nothing wrongwith this in principle, because itpermits account to be taken ofindividual development, whichdoes not usually improve in a linearfashion, but in leaps and bounds,and is determined by many psy-chological factors which affectlearning. It would scarcely be ped-agogically correct to impose anobjective or objectivised yardstickwhich ignores the learning environ-ment of the individual, because itdisregards the general and person-al factors affecting learning, thesubjective progress made and theefforts made to learn. On the otherhand, this results in unbalancedgrading: the grade given does notprovide any information about thequality of the performance in com-parison to another performance

31

produced in a different learninggroup or school. This raises ques-tions about the control of stan-dards and its criteria. In general,one can say that there is no objec-tive assessment; nonetheless, it isuseful to have criteria againstwhich the linguistic performance ofeveryone in the group will be mea-sured.

This occurs, for example, in theUniform Examination Require-ments; these are agreementsbetween the Lander on therequired standards for the varioussubjects in the Abitur, which arethen implemented by the Landerin their own examination require-ments and rules. The uniformrequirements describe in detail theperformance requirements and theareas to be assessed: content-relat-ed performance (understandingthe text, developing the topic,comments), linguistic perfor-mance, subdivided into expressivepowers (appropriateness in termsof nature of text, composition,length, style) and correct use oflanguage (formal correctness mea-sured against an accepted linguis-tic standard). Here, it is remark-able to note the increased impor-tance attached to expressive pow-ers, as opposed to pure correct-ness, through the use of criterialike variety and precision of vocab-ulary, economy and aptness ofexpression, clarity, complexity andvariation of sentence structure,appropriateness of stylistic level,linguistic linkage of the topics andsubtopics. At the same time, oneshould highlight the uniformweighting of errors: all errors countequally, with the exception ofspelling mistakes, which are count-ed as half. By taking this approach,the Uniform ExaminationRequirements are making the firstpractice-related and practicableattempt to assess one-off individuallinguistic peiformance (in the formof written responses to examina-tion tasks) more objectively, andparticularly to assess the perfor-mance of a whole group on thebasis of the same criteria.

However, it is only fair to saythat not every teacher is actuallyable to implement the UniformExamination Requirements. This ispartly because the instruments forassessing language performanceare still mainly based on the sen-tence and on formal grammar, andin consequence the main pointsneeded for successful communica-tion are often ignored. At the sametime, there is a lack of acceptedlabels to indicate failings in thecoherence of a passage of a text,such as redundancy, references toprevious/next sentence, linksbetween sentences (linguistic, logi-cal), etc. And another problem isthat linguistically erroneous butcommunicatively successfulexpressions are still marked asbeing wrong, without any thoughtbeing given to at least partiallycrediting the attempt to say some-thing even though the pupil couldnot find the right word (directlytranslating the German into trea-sures of the soil rather than usingthe English phrase mineralresources). But that is actually thereal situation which repeatedlyconfronts the user of another lan-guage: he has to get his messageacross using the stock of linguisticdata available to him. Some workby pupils is assessed as being inorder simply because it consists ofa series of correct sentences; theshape and coherence of the pas-sage or text as a whole is ignored.For this reason, pupils pursue anerror-avoidance strategy, byrestricting themselves to sayingwhat they can rather than commu-nicating what they really want tosay, because they are not sure ifthey actually can. And the linkbetween content and choice of lan-guage is neglected. For manyteachers, quantitative assessmentcriteria take precedence over qual-itative ones like substance of mes-sage and corresponding socio-lin-guistic and situationally appropri-ate language. It is clear that all mis-takes need to be marked, weightedand included in the assessment,

but this should occul.,less rigidlyand schematically, and shouldinstead conform with the object.The procedure generally used atpresent, as described above, is adeterrent. Many pupils reject a sec-ond language at school if they can,and obtain the linguistic knowledgethey need outside school.

Nevertheless, the criteria forand suggestions about assessmentcontained in the UniformExamination Requirements repre-sent a significant step forwards inthe development of foreign lan-guage teaching. The essentiallyreproductive task of retelling anaccount has been replaced by inno-vative types of exercises whichcorrespond to classwork and give amore reliable indication of the lin-guistic abilities of the pupils thanretelling can. The nation-wideUniform Examination Require-ments, which the Lander flesh outand transform into law, contain acatalogue of tasks: the thematictask (a non-text-related essay on aprescribed topic; almost only usedin North-Rhine/Westphalia), thetext-related task (analysis andevaluation of a text and its place ina wider context with independentcomments the most widespread),the combined task, consisting ofa task of hearing and under-standing plus a text-relatedtask (less common, due to therelated problems of assessment),the transformation of some-thing visual into language plusa text-related task (also lesscommon, because it is not alwayseasy to find thematically relatedvisual and textual material), and atext-related task plus transla-tion (mainly in Lander with a cen-tral Abitur, occasionally linked toquestions on grammatical points inthe text).

It should also be noted that theUniform Examination Require-ments have had a beneficial impacton lessons. Lessons are almostalways designed to meet the needsof examinations. The text-relatedtask in the examination has result-ed in more intensive training in theproduction of texts and of writingin a manner appropriate to thematter involved. This has enriched

32

the lessons and has enhanced theway topics are treated.Implementation is not uniformacross all the Lander. Some of theLander have a central Abiturexamination (Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland), othershave decentralised examinations.Both sides swear that theirapproach is the only correct one,which alone can guarantee stan-dards of education at theGymnasium (people like to referto that aspect). Each side regardsthose leaving its schools with theAbitur as being the best educated.Such claims cannot withstand anyserious tests. Customers in indus-try who work in the catchmentareas of both systems are unable toperceive any distinctions in thelanguage skills which they regardas relevant. The only sure thing isthat pupils from one system cannotcope with the examination of theother because they lack the neces-sary training.

Finally, the Abitur examination,with the Uniform ExaminationRequirements, was until recentlythe only standard stipulatedthroughout the system. It set outthe expected performance at theend of the 13th grade (with nineyears of English, seven years ofFrench/Russian/Spanish, and fiveor three years of Spanish orFrench).

At other key points in the sys-tem, e.g. the end of SecondaryLevel I, there were only reports orschool-leaving reports of varyingvalue, such as the simple leavingcertificate for Secondary Level I orthe enhanced leaving certificatewhich permits entrance to theOberstufe of the Gymnasium.What these reports did not do wasdescribe the level of learningachieved. Pupils leaving school atthe end of Secondary Level I endedtheir language courses at the pagejust reached in the textbook. It wasnot until a few years ago follow-ing failed earlier attempts in the1970s that the schools committeeof the Standing Conference ofEducation Ministers closed this gapwith a uniform description of thelevel to be attained at the end ofSecondary Level I (grade 10) forGerman, mathematics and foreignlanguages. It provides an orienta-tion for the guidelines in all theLander.

To recap: foreign language skillstoday have attained the quality of acultural technique. If foreign lan-guage skills are lacking or inade-quate, an individual will lose out inthe competition for higher-leveljobs. So everyone needs to learnforeign languages; no-one can beallowed to avoid them. But, at thesame time, no-one should be disad-vantaged through non-objectiveassessment criteria and one-sidedweighting of errors. Considerationshould also be given to the rela-tionship with other fields of learn-ing and subjects at school, givenhow important foreign languagesare in the Me of the individualwhen it comes to making the mostof opportunities, and this could, forexample, be reflected in the pre-sentation of an individual foreignlanguage profile in the school-leav-ing certificate. Here, the Council ofEurope has proposed the "ForeignLanguage Portfolio". Insightful andobjective criteria would also helpto create the necessary transparen-

Ilk

cy in the assessment of foreign lan-guage performance and wouldenable outsiders to understand thegrading. More than in the past, for-eign language teaching in Germanyneeds to become oriented to theEuropean dimension. This alsomeans that grading in foreign lan-guages must be transparent andunderstandable.

All these aspects are linked: cor-rection and assessment are relatedto motivation, encouragement, andthe desire to learn. Multilingualism

In conclusion

depends on the desire to learn anda positive attitude to learning for-eign languages, which itself is stim-ulated by objective and motivation-al assessment of the linguistic per-formance of the pupils. In a systemin which grades and certificateshave such an effect on whetheropportunities are utilised and enti-tlements awarded, assessmentitself is a vital aspect. But motiva-tion and the desire to learn mustnot be destroyed by non-objectiveassessment.

It has not been possible to present all the aspects of foreign languageteaching in Germany. Firstly, it would have taken too long, and, secondly,it would only have confused. So this paper has restricted itself to keyareas and to interrelationships between arguments: why are things asthey are? Also, the paper has attempted to link the presentation of thecurrent situation with criticisms and thoughts about further develop-ments. Some of the points may have been over-critical. But no system isso good that it cannot be improved, so there is always a need for a criticalstance. Overall, however, the conclusion is: notwithstanding its deficien-cies, inconsistencies and discrepancies, foreign language teaching inGermany works well on the whole and, against the background of a longand very specific tradition, results in amazingly high skills at all levels,which are repeatedly recognised by native speakers. There is much thatneeds to be developed further, some things should be rejected, othersretained. But, overall, it is an efficient system which is substantially bet-ter than its sometimes apparently rather tarnished reputation.

Inter Nationes

Publication dataPublished by:Inter Nationes e.V.Kennedyallee 91 103D-53175 BonnE-Mail:bw@inter-nationes.deInternet-Adresse:http://www.inter-nationes.deEditors:Ivan Tapia,Georg M. BlochmannTranslation:Andrew SimsLayout:Graphicteam KOInProduction:Ilona OrthenIllustrations:Hella RothPrinted by:Druckpartner MoserDruck+Verlag GmbH,D-53359 RheinbachEditorial deadline:1 October 1998

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