Language Promotion at the DISD
At German schools abroad, German language support is a key function for many student. We are proud of the linguistic diversity of our children and support their multilingual development with a great deal of expertise and commitment. Kindergarten prepares children for school in all areas of development and is a particularly valuable support phase from a language perspective. Mastery of the German language plays a key role in a successful school career at DISD.
Language Promotion in everyday group life
In order to promote language development, our teachers always plan their educational work in a language-sensitive way according to the educational areas of the Thuringian Education Plan. They structure the daily "language bath" in the kindergarten using methods of everyday integrated Language Promotion so that each child can learn at their own level of language development every day. Language Promotion then takes place in all educational activities as well as in sport, singing and handicrafts.
For stable language acquisition, monolingual and multilingual children need both quantitative and quantitative input consisting of linguistic role models, appropriate language and sufficient auditory stimuli. Because listening is a precursor skill to reading, we want to train the children from an early age to understand stories without visual stimuli and to be able to reproduce their content verbally. Our listening room in the kindergarten is also used to promote sensory listening.
Dialogic picture book viewing in kindergarten
To ensure that children also benefit from the "language bath" in their group and do not drown in it, our teachers always design the educational activities in a linguistically differentiated way. The methods of everyday integrated Language Promotion are part of their pedagogical tools.
Dialogic picture book viewing has a firm place in kindergarten and is also highly recommended for you at home. Conversation is at the heart of dialogical picture book viewing. The pictures and the story serve as a common focus of attention. When you open a book with your child, you do not simply read it aloud using this method. Instead, you act passively, provide stimuli and listen to what your child has to say about the pictures. Numerous studies have shown that regular dialogical picture book viewing increases children's language skills. The children set the pace and discover how much they enjoy leading the conversation or exchanging arguments. Vocabulary expansion happens incidentally when the adult provides the child with the words when they need them during the storytelling.
Additional Language Promotion "German as a Foreign Language" (DaF)
With multilingual children, various factors can lead to the "language bath" in the kindergarten group not being sufficient to achieve linguistic school readiness in the remaining time until they start school. Children often regress linguistically during the time off school if they have no contact with the German language. Based on the DaF framework plan for schools abroad, DISD has designed a language support program for the multilingual location Dubai that focuses on the language development and needs of our children.
The DaF lessons take place three times a week for 45 minutes each in the kindergarten. Children with additional language support needs are taught in small groups of up to 5 children with the following objectives:
- Development of language skills that meet the requirements of the school
- Promoting basic communication skills in everyday life
- Development and expansion of general vocabulary and the
Word formation in the German language
- Promotion of basic grammatical learning content
- Promotion of age-appropriate linguistic action patterns
The prepositions are practiced in a playful way
Accusative exercise for preschool children
Methodology and didactics of Language Promotion
Didactically, the additional Language Promotion is based on the content of the individual kindergarten groups. In this way, the children receive the language skills they need for the current topics and activities in guided DaF lessons in order to communicate, act linguistically and participate in their group.
The methods used to promote GFL are suitable for children and are based on successful linguistic criteria. Although learning still takes place in a playful way, it is planned and geared towards the necessary linguistic phenomena. The additional DaF languageLanguage Promotion teaches the children new words, grammar and sentence structures, consolidates them and helps to prevent errors from becoming fossilized.
Language assessment
If required, we carry out a comprehensive language assessment for children from the age of 4 in the kindergarten and invite parents to a personal meeting to provide information about the child's current language level and the entire support process. The multilingualism of the children is always taken into account in the evaluation. Towards the end of the year, the children are tested again to measure their language progress. The language level can also be determined at the end of the first half of the year in order to decide on the further course of support.
The language screening enables statements to be made about competencies, delays and disorders in communication, vocabulary, concept formation and sentence formation (syntax and grammar development). The evaluation and assessment of these results are prioritized according to the following aspects:
- Vocabulary (semantics)
- Sentence formation (syntax and grammar development)
- Linguistic expression (picture narrative, free speech)
Involvement of parents
Parents play an important role in children's language development. The quality and quantity of the family language has a major influence on German language acquisition, even if the family language is not German at all. Multilingual acquisition is a complex process, but one that is easy to influence and control. We want to keep parents well informed about this and stay in contact.
A DaF parents' café is held at the beginning of the kindergarten year to make the structure and process of the language support program transparent. In addition, individual information meetings are offered for each child to discuss test results and support options for family language use. Furthermore, parents receive regular email feedback on the current DaF lessons. This includes ongoing tips on language use at home and possible language support options. Media recommendations are also regularly sent, which are quick and easy to use.
Costs of the additional Language Promotion
In kindergarten, children with German as their mother tongue play and learn together with children who have an increased need for language support. As this has advantages for both sides, the groups are deliberately mixed.
However, as the additional Language Promotion is an additional offer that only some of the families make use of, the language promotion costs are not included in the general school fees. The additional costs amount to AED 4800 per school year and are paid half in the first and half in the second semester.
Open consultation hours
Ilham Abed-Ali: Mon-Fri: 07:45-08:15
Anja Beising: Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri: 07:45-08:15 a.m.
Karin Brosch: Mon, Tue, Thu: 08:00-08:30 a.m.
Daniela Mottram: Mon-Fri: 07:45-08:15
Julia Badrakhan: Mon-Fri: by prior arrangement
Outside of the open office hours, you are welcome to make an alternative appointment with your child's DaF teacher by e-mail.
