Читать книгу English in Elementary Schools - Anja Steinlen - Страница 25

In 2013, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK, 2013b) published a report on bilingual instruction in Germany in secondary (but not in elementary) schools. In this context, bilingual instruction is defined similarly to CLIL (Eurydice, 2006), namely that “it refers to the teaching of a current subject other than foreign languages in more than one language” (KMK, 2013b: 3). The report emphasizes that the curriculum of the content subject constitutes the basis for bilingual instruction (KMK, 2013b: 8) and that the learning goal is content knowledge in the content subject in two languages. Furthermore, acquired knowledge and skills in the bilingual content subject should be the same as in the corresponding regular (i.e., monolingual German) content subject (KMK, 2013b: 8).

As the only Federal State to do so, the Ministerium Baden-Württemberg für Kultus, Jugend und Sport (2008) published information on bilingual instruction at the elementary school level (“Niveaukonkretisierungen”, supplementing the curriculum for English 2004-2015). Referring explicitly to the subject MeNuK (Fächerverbund Mensch, Natur und Kultur, which combines science and culture) as an appropriate bilingual content subject, English competences for grade 4 are very briefly described in terms of lexical knowledge, world knowledge and writing skills. Unfortunately, these expectations do not deviate much from the standards set for English-as-a-subject lessons (see Ministerium Baden-Württemberg für Kultus, Jugend und Sport, 2004); that is, the close link between FL and content learning has not been taken into consideration. Administrative regulations, approval requirements, scope and duration or teacher qualifications, assessment and certification measures are also not provided by the Ministries of Education for Baden-Württemberg, Berlin or Schleswig-Holstein.