3 ms·

Pardon my ignorance but isn't it a huge mistake to place non german speaking children in these classes? They just hope they'll pick it up along the way? Isn't i

• em-bee 5y ago
  there aren't really many other options. having separate schools for migrants would make it difficult for the children to integrate into the local society, but integration is seen as critical for everyone to get along. immersion into the target language environment is also the most effective way for kids to learn a new language. they will make friends with native speakers, and that will only help their language learning. in elementary school there is also less focus on academic performance
  • c_ma_gee 5y ago
    That's right. In germany all children (no matter of their origins) have to go into the same class. That has been discussed controversial but that's the decision of the government. Once, there were so called "Welcome classes" where all immigrants were in for the first several weeks to get the basics very quick (which worked very good in our opinion by the way). But then the government decided that this is not good and started to tell all schools to integrate them from the start (which then leads to the massive language-problems we try to solve). But for integrating those children into the community it is probably not that bad.