Language Promotion in the Primary School
At DISD, children with very different starting languages and German language levels learn together. As a German International School Abroad, we are proud of our linguistic diversity and support the multilingual development of our student students with a great deal of expertise and commitment. Children with increased language support needs are additionally supported by the DaF language support team.
The acquisition of German as an everyday and educational language takes several years. This learning process depends on various factors. At DISD, the quality of the individual language acquisition process is determined by the good cooperation between the class teacher, the language support teacher and the parents.
To ensure that our student students have the same learning opportunities despite their different language levels, they are offered different learning paths in the classroom in order to achieve the class learning goals and to be able to fully develop their potential. The teachers at Primary School therefore plan their pedagogical work not only from a subject-specific perspective, but also in a language-sensitive manner.
Language-sensitive teaching is the core element of continuous language education and provides linguistic aids and learning opportunities in order to support and promote all student students with German language support needs in the best possible way in the classroom.
The teacher is guided by the individual language level and language ability of their student students and formulates appropriate linguistic and content-related goals. Using well-founded support measures (article points, repetitions, word lists, language-sensitive methods), content is prepared in such a way that all student students can understand it. The student*innen learn in a stimulating and pleasant language environment where vocabulary, grammar, etc. is visualized in the classroom. Vocabulary is consolidated through playful material (lotto, memory, dominoes, quizzes), especially digital learning.
The DISD concept for reading promotion focuses on the personalized learning of the student students and also takes into account cooperative forms of learning. Because student*innen with increased language support needs require additional support beyond the described instructional design, there is also a DaF language support team (German as a foreign language) in the Primary School .
DaF - Language Promotion in the Primary School
The class teachers and the language support teachers work closely together. Based on the feedback from the class teacher and a standardized language assessment by the language support teacher, a decision is made about the support of the student students in the context of the additive language support, which is carried out once a week in small groups. Care is taken to ensure that the children do not miss any lessons from the main subjects. A further support lesson takes place in the class group.
The language support teacher practices with the children the content from the lessons in which the class teacher has still identified language gaps. Within the school, we can thus provide a Language Promotion that is quantitatively and qualitatively adapted to the needs of the student*innen in order to promote them individually. In addition, the language support department designs further tasks on a weekly basis, which should also be used for practice and consolidation during non-school hours.
The Language Promotion in the Primary School is not associated with additional costs.
Cooperation with the parents
Language-sensitive teaching and the additional language support offered make a significant contribution to language development. However, extracurricular time in the afternoons, weekends and at Holidays must also be used to ensure the learning progress of student*innen. The greater the language impact, the greater the learning gains will be.
To this end, it is essential that parents support their child in listening, reading and speaking German, even during non-school hours. Parents are involved in this process so that the interlocking of all parties involved and thus the best possible individual support can be ensured. After all, the motivation of student*innen to learn increases when parents and teachers attach importance to the learning content.
Please feel free to contact our language development team at Primary School with any questions:
