lateral entrants

In the project seminar, which took place in the summer semester of 2016 under the direction of Junior Professor Christine Czinglar and was financially supported by the Central Teaching Fund (Teaching Innovation), students investigated GFL lessons with lateral entrants as part of excursions to two best practice schools in Schleswig and Munich and two schools in Kassel.
The aim of the project seminar was to get to know different models, to observe tried and tested concepts for teaching lateral entrants in practice and to compare and discuss the different implementation options. MA students from the DaFZ department, student teachers and participants in the DaFZ continuing education program worked in small groups on various schooling models and schools. Based on current specialist literature, observation and interview guidelines were developed and used at the four schools.

The evaluated data was presented at a final public event in July 2016 and subsequently discussed in a panel discussion with Lydia Gundlach, principal of Schule Hegelsberg, Ines Mooshage, DaZ teacher at Carl-Schomburg-Schule and Dr. Hartmut Quehl, head of the Institute for Languages, among others. The attendees were unanimous in their opinion that the state of Hesse has some catching up to do in terms of teaching lateral entrants. Around 40 GFL students, student teachers and teachers were inspired by the poster presentations and the discussion and took away some new ideas for their institutions.

The participants of the project seminar agreed that it would be interesting to see what changes this event has brought about or inspired. Astrid Lange, who accompanied the project seminar as a tutor together with Ingrid Kutz, is therefore offering a continuation of the project seminar in the winter semester 2016/17 with the title "New teaching concepts for newcomers to German as a foreign language at schools (Sek I + II)", in which some ideas and concepts for successful German as a foreign language lessons with newcomers to German at schools in Kassel will be tested.

Comparison 1: lateral entrants at comprehensive schools - Dannewerk School and Hegelsberg School

Dannewerk School

Dannewerkschule is a comprehensive school in Schleswig-Holstein with an associated DaZ center. The newly immigrated pupils are taught according to a partially integrative model (according to Massumi & von Dewitz et al. 2015). In Schleswig-Holstein, a multi-stage model is followed, which stipulates that pupils first complete a full-time basic course in order to then be able to attend a regular class after a language test (see Schulte-Brunert, E. 2016).

There are currently 506 pupils attending the school, divided into 22 classes. The lateral entrants gradually switch to the mainstream classes in activity-based subjects (e.g. sport, art, music) or English. The DaZ-Zentrum is currently attended by 70 pupils, who are on average 15 years old and mainly come from Syria and Afghanistan. The literacy needs of the pupils are around 25% in German and around 2% in their mother tongue.

Hegelsberg School

The Hegelsberg School is a comprehensive school in Kassel and works with the integrative model of the intensive course, i.e." [...] Newly immigrated children and young people attend a regular class from the first day of school and receive additive language support"(Massumi & von Dewitz et al. 2015: 7).
Around 630 pupils from 40 different countries currently attend the school; around 1/6 of the pupils are newcomers (mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe). In the last school year, there were five cross-grade intensive courses in which the pupils spend 10-12 hours, the rest of the time they take part in regular lessons.

Results of the observations

Dannewerk School is one of the two best practice schools visited during the project seminar. It differs from the Hegelsberg school primarily in terms of the teaching situation and teaching materials. Dannewerkschule strives to deal with heterogeneity through internal differentiation and self-directed learning. The teachers draw up individualized work plans for the pupils, which can be completed with a test. If this is not passed, the learner has to repeat the work plan. The students were able to gain an impression of the school's working methods on site, e.g. the social forms (such as group tables) and the learning environment (the atmosphere was perceived as relaxed, calm and focused). The school focuses primarily on self-study in the DaZ-Zentrum and provides more staff and volunteers as learning advisors than the other schools visited. In addition, the school places great emphasis on cooperation between the individual stakeholders, i.e. between teachers, parents and pupils (cf. Brömel, S. 2016: 35ff).

At Hegelsberg School, there has not yet been a fixed structure for integration. Last year, the school had to choose between intensive courses and intensive classes, which was not easy for head teacher Lydia Gundlach, as she reported during the panel discussion. Both participation in regular lessons is important for the integration of pupils (intensive courses/partially integrated model) and intensive language study (intensive classes/parallel model).

It was noted that intensive courses unfortunately cannot achieve what the Dannewerkschule model does. Lydia Gundlach and her colleagues would like more support from the state government and do not want to be left alone with the integration of pupils. The differences between the comprehensive schools in Schleswig and Kassel in terms of personnel resources were very clear.

Comparison 2: lateral entrants at vocational schools
Comparison of BOKI Balanstraße branch and Elisabeth-Knipping-Schule

BOKI Balanstraße branch (since summer 2016 "Municipal Vocational School for Vocational Integration")

The Municipal Vocational School for Vocational Integration has been an independent vocational school since summer 2016 and offers a parallel model, i.e. lessons in specially equipped classes (cf. Massumi et al. 2015: 44ff). In Bavaria, refugees have been required to attend school since 2000 and are mostly accommodated at vocational schools. The standard duration of schooling is 2 years, but can be extended in special cases.
The municipal vocational school for vocational integration has existed in this form since 2011/12 and offers classes exclusively for refugees and migrants, which is why this model differs greatly from the other models in our project. Great importance is attached to both internal and external cooperation (cf. Gahl, E. 2014: 50). The school consists of three parallel learning houses, which have nothing to do with the language level. In these learning houses, the aim is to ensure that pupils only work with a small pool of teachers, similar to the "class teacher principle" in elementary school. (cf. Hessischer Bildungsserver) The size of the classes varies between 9-18 pupils.

The success rates of the municipal vocational school for vocational integration speak for themselves: almost all pupils achieve the secondary school leaving certificate (comparable to the Hessian secondary school leaving certificate) and 15% even achieve the qualifying secondary school leaving certificate.

Elisabeth Knipping School

The Elisabeth Knipping School is a pre-vocational school that also offers a parallel model (cf. Massumi 2015: 44ff). Since the 2015/16 school year, it has been working with so-called InteA classes (InteA: Integration and Completion), which enable lateral entrants to make the transition to other school courses and open up access to the world of training and work.

Over 2,300 pupils currently attend the Elisabeth Knipping School and there were four InteA classes in the last school year, with an average class size of 20-25 pupils. Various projects are designed to integrate the newcomers into everyday school life, e.g. school mentors are assigned to support the integration of the newcomers into everyday school life or cross-class projects are organized. There is also a learning center with books, media and workstations that can be used by all pupils at the school. The Elisabeth Knipping School does not offer any additional language courses for refugees, despite the high need for literacy. In addition, the question of how to better support pupils who join the class during the current school year will arise in the future.

Results of the job shadowing

The municipal vocational school for vocational integration was the second best practice school visited as part of the project seminar and impressed the students with the good cooperation between the staff.

Furthermore, the students were impressed by the individualized materials, the workshops and the internal differentiation in the form of worksheets, posters, etc., as the school does not work with a textbook, but draws from a specially created pool of materials into which each teacher feeds materials. New teachers are supported by everyone and are given guidelines for working with the pupils.

The atmosphere at the municipal vocational school for vocational integration was very harmonious and all teachers interviewed were informed about the school structures and supported the school philosophy. The attitude of the teachers was very benevolent and positive. Even teachers who had nothing to do with language teaching (e.g. workshop lessons) dealt with language in their lessons and supported the pupils in this respect.

In contrast to the municipal vocational school for vocational integration, the Elisabeth Knipping School also teaches local pupils and cannot focus solely on working with refugees and migrants. Unlike at the municipal vocational school for vocational integration, the teachers here work with the "Berliner Platz 1" textbook, which is aimed at learners with no prior knowledge, but only appears to be suitable for the school context to a limited extent due to its focus on coping with everyday life. Similar to the municipal vocational school for vocational integration, the Elisabeth-Knipping-Schule also teaches conventional subjects (math, German, sports, etc.) and promotes the completion of internships.

At the municipal vocational school for vocational integration, pupils can only change levels or join classes on two fixed dates per school year, so there are no permanent "newcomers". Unfortunately, this is part of everyday life in Hesse and therefore also at the Elisabeth Knipping School and has a negative impact on the teaching dynamics. The pupils in a class are rarely at the same performance level, which makes work more difficult for the teachers, despite internal differentiation.

In both schools, German was the predominant language of instruction, and all pupils were also allowed to discuss individual topics and explain words in their native language. The interaction between teachers and students was benevolent in both schools, the interaction was perceived as very respectful and polite and the students surveyed felt very comfortable.

Bibliography:

Brömel, S. (2016): The challenge of differentiation in DAZ lessons. In: Foreign language German, special issue 2016, p.34-39

Gahl, E. (2014): What does alphabetized mean? In: Ursula Männle/ Ludwig Spaenle (ed.) (2014): Alphabetisierung eine Gesamtgesellschaftliche. Hanns-Seidel-Foundation e.V., Munich. P.45 ff.

Hessischer Bildungsserver: http://hauptschule.bildung.hessen.de/Klassenlehrerprinzip.html (accessed: 30.10.2016)

Massumi & von Dewitz et al. (2015): Mercator Institute for Language Support and German as a Second Language and Center for Teacher Education at the University of Cologne. Cologne.

Schulte-Brunert, E. (2016): Implementing the multi-level model. The need for long-term language integration. Fremdsprache Deutsch special issue 2016. online material.

Reports and publications:

Project report on job shadowing at the municipal vocational school for vocational integration (formerly BOKI branch Balanstraße) by Anne-Christin Schumacher: Report BOKI Schumacher PDF

Lange, Astrid, Ingrid Kutz & Christine Czinglar (2017). Learning from each other: Models for DaZ lessons for newly immigrated children and young people. Babylonia 1/2017.
Manuscript of the article on the project seminar: Artikel_Manuskript.PDF

Concept and text of the website: Wenke Seibert, participant of the project seminar

Research assistants / tutors: Ingrid Kutz, Astrid Lange

Project manager and responsible for the content:
Jun. -Prof. Dr. Christine Czinglar