Assessing English-medium instruction in German grammar schools

A survey of teachers' and students' responses

Karina Gentgen

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9783656206224
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1.0, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen (Language, Literature and Culture), language: English, abstract: English is everywhere. Not only is it the language of science, the internet and advertisement, for instance, but it is the lingua franca that allows communication all over the world. Thanksto globalization, the increasing importance of the media, the changing lifestyles of theyounger generations as well as the coalescing Europe, we cannot evade its impact. Notunnaturally, the English language has always been and still is a vital part of the Germaneducational system with a tendency to expand its influence throughout the next years. Eversince it has been introduced as a foreign language to German schools, new concepts andmethods to improve foreign language teaching have evolved. Bilingual education is one ofthose concepts. Being used in many countries and educational contexts to enhance secondlanguage learning, it has also found its way into German school types.As a method of instruction that involves a higher number of classes held in English perweek and, additionally, other subjects being taught to a greater extent in that foreign languagethan in traditional educational programs, it was introduced, developed and often criticized.Due to its success, the demand for this more intense form of second language learning hasincreased and more researchers have investigated the outcomes of bilingual education. Is sucha program beneficial to children or does it have negative consequences on their overallperformance at school? Would a higher number of English classes per week be sufficient ordo other subjects have to be taught in English and, above all, what subjects should that bewithout risking the students to have problems understanding their content? And finally, dostudents in bilingual programs have a higher language competence than students incomparable traditional English programs? These are all questions that are connected to theresearch on bilingual programs and what factors contribute to their success or what points totheir weaknesses.The last of the three questions emphasizes the aspect of bilingual education that will be thefocus of this bachelor's thesis, namely language competence. Due to the fact that anassessment of the actual language competence could not be conducted in the given timeperiod, the center of this investigation will be the subjective point of view of teachers andstudents, thus a self-assessment based on the categories of the Common European Frameworkof Reference for Languages. [...]