Call for Germany to scrap English lessons in primary schools | Hacker News Reader

Call for Germany to scrap English lessons in primary schools

dw.com

41 pointsredbell116 comments

> focusing on German instead of English made more sense in schools where 70% to 90% of the students have a migrant background with "hardly… sufficient knowledge of German."

Sounds like this is more of an immigrant issue than a “should we teach English” issue.

I wonder how you are supposed to assimilate the immigrants when they are more than 40% of all students, not to mention 70 to 90%.

You won't and that is the point. A population without social cohesion is easily governed.

That's not true at all. Germany is easily governed already.

Indeed. The social cohesion in Germany was bad to begin with. This is what happens when you are occupied territory for more than 70 years. But mass immigration destroys the last glimmer of hope for self governance.

None of that makes any sense. Having Western military bases in Germany harms social cohesion? What? Social cohesion in Germany is high anyway. Nothing you say makes any sense, the conclusions and reasoning are both wrong. You're not a serious person. Also people like you normally argue that more immigrants means more disorder, so I am really not convinced your stance is even remotely coherent.

Occupying forces are in control of the state media obviously. But since their influence on people blow 70 years of age is going to zero fast more migrants are needed.

And having experienced mass migration first hand I can assure you: more immigrants means more disorder, more violence, more cost for social net, less quality of life and lower wages across the board. My experience with migrants is 100% universally bad. And I'm absolutely serious about that.

Ah yes, obviously, of course.

> more immigrants means more disorder, more violence, more cost for social net,

Strange, you literally just insisted immigration would make Germany easier to govern. Difficult to take you seriously.

"divide et impera" is not exactly a new concept. Maybe you should brush up your greek philosophy.

Lol

Looking at France, with its assortment of violent movements and protests and ever growing ethnic plurality ... your theory seems to have some flaws.

Obviously not. Thanks to "plurality" people are occupied with fighting each other instead for themselves against rulers that repeatedly act against their interests.

It say in schools “where” 70 to 90 percent have immigrant background. I don’t think it means that portion of all students everywhere on average have immigration backgrounds.

There doesn't seem to be accurate data available, but surveys show it's around 39%. [1]

I wouldn't be surprised if the German government doesn't collect reliable data on purpose.

Original text:

> Wie viele Schüler in Deutschland einen "Migrationshintergrund" haben, ist nicht ohne Weiteres zu beantworten. Denn die Datenlage ist lückenhaft und die Ergebnisse sind häufig nicht miteinander vergleichbar.

> Laut Mikrozensus hatte 2021 über ein Drittel (rund 39 Prozent) der Schüler*innen an allgemeinbildenden und beruflichen Schulen in Deutschland einen Migrationshintergrund. Die Daten des Mikrozensus basieren jedoch nicht auf der amtlichen Schulstatistik, sondern auf einer repräsentativen Befragung von rund 810.000 Personen. Die Ergebnisse werden hochgerechnet.

English translation through Google:

> How many schoolchildren in Germany have a "migrant background" cannot be answered without further ado. The data situation is incomplete and the results are often not comparable with one another.

> According to the 2021 microcensus, more than a third (around 39 percent) of students at general and vocational schools in Germany had a migration background. However, the microcensus data is not based on the official school statistics, but on a representative survey of around 810,000 people. The results are extrapolated.

[1] https://mediendienst-integration.de/integration/schule.html

That’s for a fairly broad definition of “migration background”. Everyone who wasn’t born a German citizen or has at least one parent who wasn’t a German citizen at their birth qualifies (“Wer die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit nicht durch Geburt besitzt oder mindestens einen Elternteil hat, bei dem das der Fall ist, hat einen "Migrationshintergrund".”)

For example, Angela Merkel’s mother was born in Danzig in 1928. That wasn’t part of Germany at the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig), so chances are she wasn’t born with German citizenship. If so, Angela Merkel has a migration background according to that definition.

For primary school kids, I would guess many of them are children of people who have lived and worked in Germany for decades.

"migrant background" in German political discourse is mostly defined as "at least one parent was not born with German citizenship". That is incredibly broad and covers both children of Syrian refugees who arrived last year, as well as children of a English-German couple or the children of a third-generation Turkish immigrant who has retained his Turkish citizenship but has lived in Germany his whole life. For the sake of this debate (how many children have adequate knowledge of the German language) it is essentially meaningless.

The problem is having an immigration background in Germany doesn’t not mean the students don’t speak German [1]. Even if their parents came from Turkey or Russia 50 years ago, they are classified as such. It also doesn’t explain the deficiencies in math. While the issue is real, I think either Meidinger or the journalist is pulling a fast one here.

[1] Linked in the same article: https://www.dw.com/en/german-is-the-most-spoken-language-in-...?

Every school class in Germany has now at least 1-2 kids with migration background. Syrian, Ukraine, etc. So overall every class is affected (because the teacher needs to allocate more focus on them). Is that bad? Maybe, but what do you expect if you have migration and no increase in teacher capacity. The way to solve it is get more teacher capacity.

While what you mention (capacity) is an absolutely important issue, I am skeptical of the effect that those 1-2 kids could have had on the students' performance on a national level so suddenly. Immigration is not a new phenomenon here. I guess there could be more to it. Like, for example, Covid lockdowns, which were not implemented the same way (severity) for schools among European nations. That could also have had a big effect on students' performance, and even more on the performance of those 1-2 immigrant kids. What I am saying is the excuse that the authorities are giving is not convincing me TBH and the wording they choose makes me feel even more skeptical. My 2 cents.

You do not. From a cultural standpoint the only visible trend I have ever seen is German kids picking up migrant trends.

Of course after over a decade most children come out of it with enough German. But that is integration only on the thinnest level imaginable.

I went to school with children of Italian, Portuguese, Turkish and Greek backgrounds (mostly the parent generation migrated) and none of them were distinguishable in terms of "broad" culture from those whose grandparents were born in Germany. Not sure what kind of "migrant trends" you are talking about. The most prevalent cultural influence in my school time was probably MTV and the local "Landjugend" and in my sons' kindergarten and primary school its (sadly) Paw Patrol.

Yes, some very specific school districts in urban centers are predominantly migrant and there are cultural ramifications to that. But that is a fraction of German schools.

>Not sure what kind of "migrant trends" you are talking about

I don't know where you live, but here Arabic and Turkish Music (especially "rap" performed by these groups), attitudes and even language (I regularly hear turkish/arabic slang) clearly have a large influence outside of their respective migrant cultures.

>I went to school with children of Italian, Portuguese, Turkish and Greek backgrounds (mostly the parent generation migrated) and none of them were distinguishable in terms of "broad" culture from those whose grandparents were born in Germany.

I had a simmilar experience in my school. But we also had a lower tier school right next to us where that clearly was not the case. And there Turkish/Arabic influence was very clearly greater than any German one.

Well, there is a bias there. If you would ask the parents of the migrant kids you would get a statement that they lost 80% of their culture. A mixture is to be expected and is a necessity for human and society evolvement.

This clearly is not "integration". There is a delusional fantasy, by all political sides, going on here that migrants will "integrate", like what actually did happen with sub 1% imkigratnt groups.

Why would these groups, which locally easily are a third of the population, if not the majority, want to integrate? German "culture" is literally just doing 8-5 work. Of course they are going to assert their native cultures.

>A mixture is to be expected and is a necessity for human and society evolvement.

A mixture of what? Speaking German + fundamental Islam + LGBT rights + driving a BMW + putting Gyros into bread. Is that "integration"? Completely laughable to be honest. These migrants group are doing what all otuer groups would do, forming their own parallel society, with their own shops, their own spaces and asserting it in the face of integrationist pressure.

"Outer groups," "native culture," "fundamental islam + LGBTQ rights," "These migrants," … The 1930s called, they want their xenophobic language back!

What kind of nonsense response is that? Why do you think I am literally hitler because I use the most normal words imaginable and repeat what migrants will tell you about their experience.

Maybe there is a large cultural gap here, but I grew up in a "worse" part of town with lots of migrants around. Maybe you should try to do the same before calling everyone a nazi because they dare to point out what these people say they want?

And here someone won the Godwin award again. That was fast.

Fascinating how your adversary is having a well mannered argument and you derail it to call him a nazi. Takes one to know one, I think.

I said his use of language is reminiscent of the way language was used in the 1930s, I didn't call him a Nazi. For what it's worth, the Nazis certainly don't have a monopoly of using language in this kind of way (creating an "us" vs. "them" narrative), it is quite common with populists all throughout history and certainly not confined exclusively to one particular political spectrum. But every time someone tries to stylize two very complex groups into two simple opposing forces, it should really ring alarm bells.

You are using language that is designed to (artificially) create an us vs. them scenario. You are creating two groups, "Germans" on the one side, "migrants" on the other. These are rhetorical devices that have been used throughout history, but most prominently during Nazi rule, to create a social climate and justification for discrimination and ultimately violence targeted at minorities.

In reality, there is neither something like "German culture," nor something that can be defined as "migrant culture". Migration and cross-influencing of languages and cultures is a fundamental feature of human history and every time someone gets out the tropes that you are using, what they are really saying is "I want society to work the way I prefer" instead of going through the trouble of trying to understand what is happening and participating in working out a solution to actual problems.

I think it is quite hilarious to see how utterly delusional people are about the subject of migration. Probably because they never had the experience of growing up in a place where a significant population were migrants and consequently having very little interactions with them or migrant classmates, friends, colleagues.

Ask them how they feel about "us versus them". They will laugh at you if you tell them that they have no culture. They have a culture and they intend to protect it, of course.

But at least you seem to agree that integration is a complete fantasy.

The point is that you are creating an image of a society fundamentally split into "natives" and "migrants" – two distinct groups that in this telling are incompatible. I am sorry about the seemingly bad experiences you've had growing up, if I understand you correctly. But they have little to do with the other people in your environment being migrants or of migratory background. You'll find similar dynamics even in contexts where migration is not prevalent but other social problems exist.

Your experience is certainly real and worth to be taken seriously, but it reflects an outlier and not a fundamental problem with society in Germany. The vast majority of interactions between "immigrants" and the rest of the population are positive and productive for everyone involved, especially when you take into account that the concept of a German society is not that old to begin with and virtually every family has some form of migratory history. "Migration" as the root cause of social problems does not make any sense because it always presumes that there is something "different" about people from other places. And as someone who has been to plenty of places that most people in Germany would describe as "different," I think that's just not true. People are mostly the same everywhere and want basically the same things. "Culture" in terms of personal and collective experience certainly matters a great deal to many people, but it only becomes exclusionary if people feel challenged by the context they are living in and their culture/religion/caste/whatever provides a convenient narrative to fall back on.

Regarding 'their' culture in their shops I recently came to the conclusion that large parts of them tend offer sloppy services for high prices with cheap stuff.

That may not be the case for everyone, and also depend on how they perceive you, so they vary the prices according to their 'culture'.

TBH they can all fuck off, I won't miss them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

It is a combination of an immigrant issue with the refusal to make a distinction between different pupil populations. One could e.g. teach additional remedial German lessons, or split the class and teach German to those who don't know enough German, English to the rest. But this is intentionally not done, several states emphasize identical curricula for all their pupils. The intention is to give everyone "the same chance". But this severely holds back brighter pupils as well as those who are e.g. more knowledgable in German or other subjects. Thereby lowering the overall educational outcomes, because everything is lowest-common-denominator by law.

It is also the unwillingness to spend the money required for the necessary number of teachers to have a differentiated curriculum. If 1 teacher = 25 students, everyone of course has to learn the same stuff.

Edited to add: this also has nothing to do with some students being “brighter”. Different kids have different learning requirements, and not speaking the local language is an obvious one, though not at all correlated with intelligence.

The "brighter" distinction isn't relevant in this case, yes. It just comes up in the overall discussion about whether to have a 3-, 2- or 1-branch school system, that is whether to have different branches of schools after primary school that cater to more-brainy-less-handy or more-handy-less-brainy types.

And I don't think money is an issue. The problem with lots of immigrant children is mostly one found in cities, where there is typically more than one "second grade" per school. So you could easily, with the exact same amount of teachers, give English lessons to classes 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d and German lessons to 2e and 2f.

Just to share some insights from our local rural primary school (where I am the head of the parent's association and have regular conversations with the school principal about personnel) and from a primary school in Berlin Kreutzberg (where my sister is a teacher):

Schools get a number of "teaching hours" allotted based on the number of children attending that school (some children might be classed as requiring more hours, i.e. those with certified special learning requirements). It is universally accepted (except by the politicians setting those hours) that these are insufficient to actually provide the supervision and support to have the learning outcomes that are desirable and demanded by government/parents. They also do not cover additional (but foreseeable) requirements due to illness, etc.

No school actually has all of these teaching hours covered because there are simply not enough teachers to go around. Even if, by some miracle, 100% of hours are covered at the beginning of the year, every teacher that leaves during the year due to illness, pregnancy, etc. is pushing down coverage.

Because of the lack of actual teachers, the hours are also increasingly covered by people transferring from other professions. These are counted as full teaching staff, but are obviously not as qualified as actual teachers. Teachers are also expected to do a lot of stuff that is not teaching, i.e. school administration, social work, counseling, etc.

My personal guess is that in most schools, you would actually need about 130% of the teaching hours currently allotted to provide a quality education for all pupils, while schools in special situations (i.e. large migrant populations) would need probably more like 150-200%. In reality, the typical school probably has only 80-90% of allotted hours available (some of which are covered by non-teachers) with schools in special situations often having even less, because they are typically situated in places with more budgetary constraints/not a desirable workplace.

Maybe also interesting/important in this context: Schools have only very limited ways to do their own hiring. Teachers are usually allocated by state government administrations. This tends to be a bureaucratic and drawn-out process. Normal teaching positions usually require a few months to fill under ideal conditions, positions for principals/vice principals can take more than a year, even if a candidate is available. Our primary school has been without a principal for a year now and while the vice-principal has been confirmed to take over the position, it will take a few months more to make that official. And only then the position of vice-principal will be recruited. Most likely, the school will be without a full administrative team for two years or more when all is said and done.

> Teachers are usually allocated by state government administrations.

This. Biggest issue in all variants of Germany’s education system. Schools should have their own budget which they can allocate as they wish and be allowed to freely raise additional budget from private of public sources for their projects. They should also have a say in the salary of the teachers they employ.

In Germany, historically, all teachers are civil servants that can’t be fired and, hence, aren’t really held responsible for the outcome of their teachings. Especially in troublesome areas schools are left with often incompetent and lazy personnel make the situation for children even worse.

This sounds good in theory, but in practice 2e and 2f will be the problem classes that everyone will be trying to escape, including those immigrant kids whose parents are more upwards-mobile and who pay attention to their kids education.

Yes, but on the other hand, the same thing is currently happening, just on the scale of parents moving out of school districts with "problem schools" that are mostly determined by a higher migrant percentage. Thus accelerating the formation of migrant and lower class neighborhoods and upper class suburbs.

Providing different classes at the same school would at least allow some contact of those different groups of children, and in a similar fashion, contacts between the adult population.

Would not that be a good thing because they have incentive to perform better?

It isn't necessarily a money issue. Here in France we also got rid of classes with different levels in favor of a "one size fits all approach", for ideological reasons. As such a school can have 3 teachers, but they'll all teach the same thing, rather than having one teach a slightly more advanced curriculum, and one teach a slightly simpler one.

The end result is actually pretty bad. The more advance kids are bored, the ones who need a bit more help are completely lost, and only those who happen to be exactly in the middle actually get something.

The original idea was to level social distinctions, but in practice it just broke the school system and in doing so increased inequality.

> refusal to make a distinction between different pupil populations. One could e.g. teach additional remedial German lessons

There's no such refusal and your suggestion is the status quo.

https://www.bamf.de/EN/Themen/Integration/ZugewanderteTeilne...

No. What you are linking to is exactly what I was talking about, and you should carefully read what you are linking to: This only applies to some states. In the typically more conservative, right-wing southern ones, pupils with deficiencies in German are required to attend German lessons. In the typically more left-wing northern states, such requirements tend to be frowned upon, and even a voluntary offering of remedial German lessons is often not provided.

Also, the agency you are linking to is responsible for recent immigrants. That is relevant because some states offer German lessons only to refugees, asylum seekers, etc. But not to children born in Germany, sometimes even with citizenship, who nonetheless do not speak sufficient German because their parents don't. This group is a significant part of the problem.

I only have experience with left-wing Berlin, where some of my classmates would occasionally attend a mysterious subject called "DaZ", and that's all I noticed as someone unaffected. But they certainly did graduate speaking fluent German.

My source says all Länder carry out proficiency testing, can you name a specific Land that doesn't have remedial classes for children who perform poorly on the test?

https://www.bildungsserver.de/deutsch-als-fremdsprache-in-de...

https://www.bildungsserver.de/innovationsportal/bildungplusa...

It's complicated, because everyone likes to "look good", so publications always emphasize what they are doing, not what they aren't. E.g. in NRW, there are no classes for all pupils, just in grade 5 and 6 at some schools that have been selected for higher migrant population. So there are 180 remedial classes in NRW, which is laughable for a state of over 10 million.

You make a good observation, but it can also go the other way. There are bright immigrant/expat kids who don't speak German well initially, but by being treated the same as native speakers, they catch up by third or fourth grade sufficiently, and in addition also learn English to comparable levels (or better) as the German kids. This leads to good integration, and they would not be well-served by being put on a "dumbed down" track. The curriculum is by and large so light anyway (compared to e.g. Eastern European countries), that sharper kids coast through without much challenge.

In the event of either or, who should take priority - citizens or immigrants?

Keeping immigrants down usually does not benefit the majority population -- at least on the long term.

Splitting classes requires more rooms and teachers. Which propably won't happen, because the (school) system is in shambles.

Not everywhere to the same degree, but the general trend is downward. OTOH I'm surrounded by Kindergardens, 1 expanded and overhauled with nice and enlarged playgrounds, another expanded, and one being built right now into a former ALDI, which moved into a small mall.

So...shrug?

Btw...

> But this severely holds back brighter pupils as well as those who are e.g. more knowledgable in German or other subjects. Thereby lowering the overall educational outcomes, because everything is lowest-common-denominator by law.

This is nothing new. Happened 40+ years ago also. (To me. While being one of the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36275943 Imagine!1!!)

It's a real shame for the 10 to 30% of german children who will have to waste their time attending classes for a language they already know when they could get a headstart practicing english.

In my childhood, we have not had english and therefore in your argument also no extra German. Sometimes, we expect too much of our kids.

Maybe important to point out that schools with 70-90% migrant children is the exception, not the norm and limited to very specific contexts in a handful of major cities. Those major cities, especially Berlin and some in the mid-west also tend to be quite broke exacerbating the issue.

The bigger problem for the German public education system (and there is no private education worth speaking of in Germany) is that the federal states (which are responsible for schools) have systematically underinvested in teacher recruitment for the past two decades. The pipeline is empty, a large share of teachers will go into retirement in the next 15 years and politicians (of all parties) have so far ignored realistic projections concerning the number of teachers required.

So yes, reducing English lessons to improve German reading comprehension makes sense in a way. But what would make even more sense would be to drastically increase funding for teaching positions to ensure that kids don't loose two-three weeks worth of school per year, because too many teachers are sick and neither German nor English lessons are taking place.

I am a German who lives in Australia. Australia handles immigrants far, far better than Germany, and I feel like that is reflected in these school outcomes.

In my kids' school, about 80% of kids' parents don't speak that much English. The school and the child nurse told us, 'don't worry about English, they'll learn that here at school, focus on their native tongues'. I don't think that's isolated to Australia, which is far more multi-cultural than Germany in many regards (government infrastructure, city-life,

Yet Australia scored 11th in the same test: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/16/victo...

I don't think scrapping English in primary school will change anything, that's just grasping at straws. You'd have to change how the entire society works: get rid of a weirdly stratified school system, support immigrants far better (have government staff who actually speak English, for a start...), get rid of the class-heavy barriers in peoples' heads, too much to do.

Germany is on spot 21, by the way - took me far too long to find that information. https://pirls2021.org/results/achievement/ click on 'Download Section' for a PDF with the ranking. Looking at the range of reading skills (those barcharts on the right), Germany isn't actually doing that bad.

> 'don't worry about English, they'll learn that here at school, focus on their native tongues'.

My parents got the same advice after moving from eastern Europe to Germany and they ignored it. They did it because they recognized pretty fast how important it is to "appear German" otherwise you might be disadvantaged. If I had the choice myself I would not repeat the decision my parents made thirty years ago. I am convinced I would have learned German and Englisch without loosing my native language. Scrapping one language for another makes no sense for me.

IMHO, they might have felt compelled to do so- in the 90s Germany's Neonazis were at their strongest. Amadeu Kiowa was murdered by Neonazis in 1990. The Solingen fire-bombing by Nazis (5 people dead) was 1993, the Luebeck refugee home burning killed 10 people in 1996. That decade saw dozens of refugee homes burned down with dozens of murdered people.

Look at the list of refugee home attacks during the 90s, with a peak in 1993 (I count 61 attacks)

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_fl%C3%BCchtlingsfeindlic...

I can understand why your parents felt the pressure to have you fit in!

Everything in the EU is suffering from not having a universal language, be it English, German, Spanish, Mandarin, I don't really care, but it's incredibly bad for everything but 'the culture' to not speak one language. My German is excellent and the last time I had a project in Germany, ALL my German colleagues wanted to speak English to practice their English. It is almost worthless, from a financial perspective, to speak any of the smaller languages and doubtful if German, even in Germany, would give you a better outlook than speaking bad German but solid English. In ES/PT/GR this is definitely the case; English will make you king, the local lingo will do nothing but allowing you to read the literature. It's important, but really shouldn't be a priority imho. It's mostly old people wanting to keep this alive and the youth is fed up not having chances because not speaking a viable language.

> In ES/PT/GR this is definitely the case

Spanish and Portuguese open the doors to LatAm. Know a good number of Spanish business owners who have built fortunes in the Spanish-speaking world with dubious English.

Sure, but most people are not entrepreneurs and they just want jobs and have a family where they are born. I am not saying we should be speaking English (although it makes sense), i'm saying to pick a language (Spanish is fine) and just do it.

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'll probably miss something.

I'm British and living in Berlin; my German is… I can get most written text, and the carefully-edited examples in recorded lessons, but I only understand about half of spoken German, regardless of if that's DW Langsamer Gesprochen Nachrichten Podcast or a conversation.

Most of the Germans I talk with have ample examples of exported culture from Hollywood to learn English language from.

But: (1) I'm mostly interacting with the companies that hire foreigners like me, and (2) everyone says Berlin is exceptional in how welcoming it is of outsiders.

Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek? I'm not sure, as I have no experience of working there, και εγω barely μιλαω two of them, but I assume the external cultural pressure from Brazil helps a bit with promoting Portuguese, and the rest of Latin America likewise with Spanish.

Sorry but what have you unpacked? I don't understand what point you're making here.

I am unsure how this relates to what I posted?

Ah, in that case it seems I've misunderstood you, so treat it as some random stranger making a well meant but useless anecdote that merely vibes with you rather than properly adding — I think MandieD was on the same page as me given the response to me in the same vein?

I live in Großraum Nürnberg, which is more cosmopolitan than anywhere in the former East (aside, of course, from Berlin), and I'm stuck in the plateau of speaking German well enough to get the Ausländeramt (excuse me, Auslanderbehörde) to grant me a Niederlassungserlaubnis (permanent residence permit), and to maintain good relations with my in-laws, but not what could be called "verhandlungssicher" (capable of negotiations or other serious business discussions), and that has put a definite ceiling on my career possibilities - I'm sought after as an individual contributor, but I will never be in management unless I manage to kick my German use up a couple of levels.

Germany is a prime destination for ambitious young people from Spain, Portugal and Greece, many of whom are willing to put forth the effort to learn German well enough to be successful here, but get their feet in the door with English.

Spain, Portugal and Greece are prime destinations for Germans on vacation, and the more intellectually ambitious will attempt to learn enough of the local languages to be polite, but there are enough not intellectually-ambitious Germans with sufficient money to travel that menus and hotel room info are often offered in German, along with the ubiquitous English.

TL;DR: There's a bit of an economic hierarchy going on that makes the language situation for Germans different from that of the Spanish, Greeks and Portuguese.

> I'm sought after as an individual contributor, but I will never be in management unless I manage to kick my German use up a couple of levels.

In international companies, especially US ones, this shouldn't be an issue. It may be even be an advantage, because there tend to be conflicts between the German business and the US mother, and the Germans need someone who can talk to US people on the same level while representing the German business.

> English will make you king, the local lingo will do nothing but allowing you to read the literature. It's important, but really shouldn't be a priority imho.

Because most jobs outside of IT require you to be fluent in the local language as that's what all business is done in. No matter what sector. Even if you work in IT, if you're a sysadmin for example, you still have to be able to communicate with the business dept, other employees, software and documentation is in the local language, and so on.

Language influences the way we think, however I agree that would be better to focus on single universal language. Multiple local languages just create additional barriers in communication. I can't just move to Germany, France or Spain, because unless you fluently know their language, you're more or less disabled person that requires translations.

A bit of background missing from this article: primary school (1st - 4th grade) English is a relatively new (last 20 years or so) innovation, while secondary school (5th grade onward) English has been a widespread thing for far longer. That English instruction, judging from the quality of similarly-aged colleagues' understanding and use, was far more thorough and effective than even my relatively good Spanish instruction (8th-11th grade in the 90s) was in Texas.

My husband didn't have school English until 5th grade, but sounds like a Brit to Americans, and can negotiate pretty well: his mother was a Gymnasium (college-prep high school) English teacher and taught him a bit as a four year old while she was home for the year after his little sister was born, but didn't really bother with it after that. That bit as a little kid, however, was apparently the magic. His sister, by the way, does not speak English better than most other well-educated Germans her age - their mother was too busy to repeat the experiment with her.

I joke that my mother-in-law has only herself to blame for getting stuck with an American daughter-in-law - I doubt I'd have been able to form as deep a relationship with my husband if he couldn't speak English as well as he does. My German is enough to carry on a cordial relationship with my in-laws and participate in parents' council and amateur radio stuff, but not to deal with the weightier parts of marriage and how we're raising our child.

As the parent of an American-German and a Bavarian schools taxpayer, I'd rather see a little exposure in Kindergarten (3-6 years old) than the current very uneven primary school efforts. Get the English sounds in their ears while their little brains are still so flexible, and do the education later, after they're fully literate in the language they need to know: German.

The Krippe (daycare) and Kindergarten workers are relatively young, and have more casual English exposure (and confidence) than the older, better-educated school teachers, and might be better positioned to provide that early exposure, funny enough.

A book I enjoyed:

> English is the world's lingua franca-the most widely spoken language in human history. And yet, as historian and linguist Nicholas Ostler persuasively argues, English will not only be displaced as the world's language in the not-distant future, it will be the last lingua franca, not replaced by another.

> Empire, commerce, and religion have been the primary raisons d'etre for lingua francas--Greek, Latin, Arabic have all held the position--and Ostler explores each through the lens of civilizations spanning the globe and history, from China and India to Russia and Europe. Three trends emerge that suggest the ultimate decline of English and other lingua francas. Movements throughout the world towards equality in society will downgrade the status of elites--and since elites are the prime users of non-native English, the language will gradually retreat to its native-speaking territories. The rising wealth of Brazil, Russia, India, and China will challenge the dominance of native-English-speaking nations--thereby shrinking the international preference for English. Simultaneously, new technologies will allow instant translation among major languages, enhacing the status of mother tongues and lessening the necessity for any future lingua franca.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8366156-the-last-lingua-...

* Not in bookshop.org's database

The second part is perhaps more important than the first - once we have nearly perfect automatic translators, the need to learn the lingua franca will drop.

As it is, the "movers and shakers" in the BRIC all speak the lingua franca (English), and more importantly; they speak English between each other even when no native English speakers are around.

In fact, the downfall of the Pax Americana (which from a language perspective is just the Pax Britania continued) may result in solidifying English as the lingua franca, as it would become a neutral language that doesn't show deference to any particular up-and-coming power.

We absolutely do not have anything close to perfect automatic translators. Machine translation is still largely shit, and very definitely shit if you try to use it in a real time situation.

And it’s definitely not good enough for negotiations or legal discussions that are common for business. There is a lot of important nuance that machine translations don’t capture that can be critical. A machine translated contract for example is a very risky proposition.

There will be a need for professional translators. The majority of interactions do not need that level though.

This isn't even true in it's face. The lingua franca the term is derived from was a trading language across different cultures. It was used across the Mediterranean when there was a common language due to geopolitical or religious barriers. The need for such a language has only increased with increased global connectivity and global commerce. This is the same role it's filing in places like the EU, where only a small population speaks it natively, but it's a working language of the central bank and and the European Commission. In India and South Africa, it's lack of a native population has actually helped it maintain it's status, as other potential languages of commerce/government (for example Hindi in India and Afrikaans in SA) are associated negatively with nationalistic political movements for a majority of the population. Even in a country like Vietnam, where you would think a negative history with the United States would discourage it's use, over 50% of its population has some use of it. Overall, I just think it's hard to see any sort of trend of English lessening as a lingua franca.

It’s possible increasingly accurate and usable real time translation removing the need for a common tongue over the next 20 years, let alone 100

> The lingua franca the term is derived from was a trading language across different cultures.

Which is the first 80-90% of the book: the history of various ones going back about to 3000 BC (or some such).

From my experience, this makes sense (at least for the lower classes). I had English classes since my first grade. Considering the results, it was mostly waste of time. None of us had even basic proficiency even after years of attending English classes.

Language learning requires frequent classes and a decent amount of exposure (TV doesn't provide it). This is possible with older kids, not the young ones.

From my experience, it doesn't. All of my kids are fluent in English, Dutch and at least one more language. And I credit early exposure and the schools spending a lot of time on this from age 6 and up.

It helps that in the Netherlands we subtitle rather than dub foreign (and thus most English) speaking content. I was surprised when watching Forest Gump to hear that "Shit happens" is translated to "Scheisse passiert" and my German speaking friends didn't even know the English version. Ironically, I think most German speakers are more familiar with Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice actor, than his own voice while being from Austria.

Our music also contains more English music than German, which doesn't seem to be the case in Germany.

So in the Netherlands, we're exposed to English a lot more than German, French or Spanish speaking countries. I bet the same applies to the Nordic countries, which also have great English speaking ability

There's something that the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden do well when it comes to English. Almost all people I met from those countries spoke fluent English with good pronunciation.

What do you believe Dutch schools do well when it comes to learning English? How large are the classes? Are there any things outside the school that might play important role in learning English?

Could it be just the language compatibility? (not sure how Switzerland would fit)

I think NL is just too small to be picky about languages. You either are willing to adapt or you'll be in trouble. In Germany you can get away with it.

Seems like Holland manages this just fine?

Imo dropping the only language that is common across the continent is a bad idea. When cultures lose intercultural comprehension, they become more isolated, and that's entirely a bad thing.

Germany is the defacto leading culture on the continent, and having a population that is able to be integrated in international information streams is critical to it playing that role well.

Just look to other countries who speak less English. You don't want to end up like the french do you?

> You don't want to end up like the french do you?

Exactly what do you mean is the problem with the French?

Assuming I've understood you correctly, I think it's worth pointing out that the French very consciously hold onto their linguistic identity. Many people would argue that is a good thing, rather than a bad thing. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I do think that your claim of "entirely a bad thing" is something that depends a lot on your perspective.

I bet it heavily depends on teachers and curriculum. I had English classes from first grade and at the end of school I was fluent in written and spoken English.

But the curriculum was not even close to what they teach in most schools. It was pretty hardcore. The groups were small (10 students max) and the teachers were relentless and actually cared.

Idiotic. I can't say I learned much in school, but learning witten and spoken english has been something which has consistently been valuable almost anywhere.

That would be an own goal. International trade and communications for business reasons is in English, like it or not.

What's next, voice overs in German instead of English subtitles? /s

German is a hard language to learn, especially for migrants who learn it as their second language. This is not going to be solved by scrapping English lessons, it is solved by improving the way German is taught.

There also needs to be a cultural shift in Germany regarding how non-native German speakers are treated. If you're not absolutely fluent, you are fucked. Living in Germany as a non-native is being stuck between two worlds. Germans only speak English to you, whilst insisting that you absolutely must learn German, and rejecting completely you if you're not fluent. So in the end, you cannot really win.

How does that rejection manifest itself?

Insisting on speaking English with you, thus slowing your integration. Actively avoiding you if you're an Ausländer. Segregation along racial/linguistic lines in the workplace or other settings (my workplace has three groups: Germans, Slavs (I am an honorary Slav it seems) and Chinese). Speaking either fluent, mumbled German or not at all or just English—no attempt on their part to accommodate your imperfect German by speaking more slowly/clearly/simply.

IMO that is what it's like to live in Germany. I don't expect people to bend over backwards for me. But on the one hand, Germans absolutely insist on immigrants learning German, but on the other hand, even when you are learning German, they don't really change their behaviour at all, so actually learning German is far less helpful than you might think.

> Insisting on speaking English with you, thus slowing your integration.

I encountered the same with another language. I think this is just the matter of practicality and efficiency, no one is out to impede me in some way. It's on me to learn the language and I shouldn't expect people to go an extra mile and babysit me. I don't deserve special attitude if I'm doing the thing that's anyway normal and expected.

Also, I don't say it's not difficult in your situation (though I envy you, wouldn't mind moving to Germany myself) but I suspect a lot of this can be projection. You feel like you are separated and people don't want to hang out with you because of the language and you behave accordingly, you hang out with a group of fellow immigrants, etc and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Especially if you are sensitive to rejection. You give more weight to every sign that a person may be predisposed against (even if it's their bad mood not you) and discount signs where a person is friendly.

But that said can also be bad luck with social circles. I have met people from different countries who are quick to profile and look down on foreigners and people from the same country who are open and nice.

It may be the case, but you don't know me, and by your own admission have never lived in Germany, so you cannot possibly reasonably ply your cod psychoanalysis on me. I can only speak of my own experiences and describe to you what it is like. It's up to you if you want to simply discard everything I say, blame everything on me and completely absolve German society or not. That would be a very German thing to do, after all ;)

I could talk at further length about it, but I guess I am not predisposed to do so, because it's clear you've already made your mind up, and it's not so enjoyable to discuss German society with someone who has no idea about German society and yet clearly has very strong opinions on it!

I don't know you but I know me and many things you describe were a frustration at first until I tried to empathize with people around.

Also I don't blame everything on you, just pointing out you have agency, can change your social circles and find friendlier people, and feeling entitled is not always the best strategy ;)

I think the difficulty here is that I would like to talk to you about German society and try to engage with you and have a discussion, but you don't know anything abut German society, so it's somewhat pointless for me to do so. And in the end anything I say you will likely respond with "yeah that's all in your head and you're projecting", which is ultimately groundless (even if it's true! because you've never lived in Germany and you don't know me) and extremely patronising. So in the end the discussion would be a waste of time.

All I will say is that I appreciate that I have agency and despite the difficulties I have outlined above, I continue to learn the language, and I continue to go out and engage with people of all sorts, and to generally live my life. So whatever picture you painted of me in your head, I think somehow it's not really grounded in reality. On the issue of my supposed "entitlement", I only hope to be treated in the way I treat people myself. I am not looking for special treatment, only treatment with some degree of the empathy you say is so important for me to have!

> I suspect a lot of this can be projection.

I suspect the GP is very well able to describe their situation accurately and to draw meaningful conclusions from it. In English speaking countries immigrants are treated so much more gracefully compared to Germany (or France, for that matter). You either are perfectly fluent or you may as well not bother whereas in English speaking countries people will be happy to adapt.

> In English speaking countries immigrants are treated so much more gracefully compared to Germany (or France, for that matter). You either are perfectly fluent or you may as well not bother whereas in English speaking countries people will be happy to adapt.

What else should native english speakers do? There's no way they could make communicating easier by switching to a lingua franca since they are speaking the lingua franca already. That leaves adapting as the only possible way to facilitate communication, doesn't it?

Be that as it may, it does not change the realities on the ground. In one country you get to learn the language by speaking with locals, and in the other you do not. Perhaps you consider this unimportant, fine, but then also expectations on immigrants learning German really ought to be adjusted.

"Actively avoiding you" is bad if true but most of that comment is about totally normal things, like not making accommodations in speech and switching to more efficient language both people understand. If it was me I would do the same, wouldn't want to dumb down my own language for every immigrant around (what would that language become eventually...) and similarly now I don't expect others should for me. There are teachers and instructors, you can watch local media, read books, lurk on forums, find a local SO/close friend, etc. It's not expected to be a fast and easy process anyway.

> wouldn't want to dumb down my own language for every immigrant around

I think the point is that we have lots of experience doing exactly the thing you say you wouldn't do. And think absolutely nothing of it. It's just what you do, because it's being empathetic and welcoming.

Who is "we" though? I met some English people who are great at speaking clearly but it somehow always smells of talking down (the "as a foreigner you can't possibly understand me if I speak normally" vibe) or absence of another linga franca to fall back to for efficiency, or both.

I always appreciate people speaking normally, I can always ask if I didn't get something and it keeps me on my toes. Teachers/instructors or news presenters are there for easy to understand language, normal people are for real street speak

> Insisting on speaking English with you, thus slowing your integration.

Insist back. Repeatedly.

Germans (usually) don't do this out of malice, they do this out of (in this case, misunderstood and shortsighted) kindness and friendlyness. They try to be welcoming and make it easy for a foreigner by speaking English, thus removing the language barrier. To them, speaking English is improving your integration, at least in the short term, because you can communicate easily and efficiently right now. If you just ask once to speak German, you will be ignored since it is assumed that you are just doing this out of politeness. It is, to Germans, perfectly acceptable if you then insist on speaking German nonetheless and point out that you are not requesting German out of politeness but a desire to learn.

But the default mode for a German will always me to speak English to foreigners, never German.

Speaking slowly and simply has a similar connotation of impoliteness. If you speak slow and simplified German to a foreigner you are (in a German's mind) pointing out their flawed grasp of the language, thus offending the foreigner. Better to "compliment" the foreigner by speaking "normally", thus pointing out the foreigner's competence...

You may not need to "insist" insist either, ie., no need to explicitly ask or make it a problem if German colleague speaks English :) Conversation is a two-way street and you both have agency. They reply in English... you just hit them right back with German! (maybe with a question to clarify if they got it, in case your accent is really strong)

Have you tried finding other ways to practice your German than at the workplace? Your local library or the university (if your town has one) might have pinboards for finding a language partner, i.e. someone you meet with and practice your and their language skills together. That might be a more relaxed environment for practicing than the workplace. For listening comprehension, there should be lots of resources online (for news I would recommend the "Tagesschau").

All the best!

Yes I have tried, my experience in general is that the tandem partners are really quite flakey and difficult to keep going.

I agree I should watch more TV and listen to more radio. But I don't even do these in my mother tongue, so there is twice the impediment.

I never managed to find a good tandem partner either. Maybe there is some Internet content you might like btw? The Youtube channel "KurzgesagtDE" has over a hundred videos covering a wide variety of topics in a more modern style if that might be more appealing?

This action goes against what it takes to raise a child (in the global community). Instead of looking at integration as an attempt to homogenize a society, we should look at multi cultural opportunities as a way to expand global views. Especially when it comes to language. I couldn’t help but notice that as soon as they could, after brexit, German companies eliminated the English translations included on appliances and foodstuffs. As a recent returning german/american I get many disdainful comments on my imperfect language skills, which I know, from my years of experience as a community organizer, is also a form of racism. Our capacity for learning languages is an individual cognitive ability. According to Germans, you don’t even speak proper German if you speak with someone from a different province...this attitude needs to change systemically. And removing the opportunities to learn other languages from the curriculum during Childrens’ early years, is exactly the opposite of what should be happening in the schools.

If germany would just stop dubbing virtually everything no matter how small from english to german they would get years of intrinsic english learning for free. Whenever i meet someone with surprising english skills (ignoring cases of having native speakers in the family) part of the answer is that they watched english shows and movies from a super young age because their countries were not dubbing.

Sounds like a one-size-fits-all proposal by an utter idiot. (Admitting that the situation may be such that Meidinger himself has no viable alternative.)

Vs. - the primary school I attended had 3 classes of students per year. At the start of the school year, they gave reading and math proficiency tests to students starting their final year, and - for those two subjects only - shuffled kids around so that reading and math lessons were in classes with similar proficiency levels. That required ~zero extra resources, and there was no fuss made over it.

If Germany could somehow lock up all the bureaucrats, hotheads, and idiots...how easily could the German teachers (at least those in schools large enough to have a few full classes per year level) do something similar?

Germany likes to blame immigration for the underachievement of its school system, but the reality is that it's an extremely outdated system that is absolutely not prepared for the modern world. While in Scandinavian countries - with similar levels of immigration - children are not only learning English but also programming and other innovative subjects, German teachers come up with obviously short-sighted policies such as these.

There is no "German" school system. There are (at least) 16 different school systems in Germany. The original article glosses over that. Each state has (almost) full autonomy regarding schools, there are only voluntary (by the council of state education ministers) alignments between states. The federal government can only apply minimal directions by providing some additional funding in limited areas. And even within states there are often different kinds of public schools depending on the current political trends in that state at the time, e.g. to try out or introduce "Gesamtschule" (1-branch secondary school system) vs. 2- or 3-branch (and maybe fuse some or all secondary 3-branch "Hauptschule" and "Realschule" into "Mittelschule"), 8- vs. 9-year Gymnasium etc. It is a total mess, what might be true for one kind of school in one state might be different a few kilometers away in the next state.

So comparisons are hard, even between German states.

I also think this autonomy is one of the reasons why the overall average quality is so bad: Schools are a political issue that is used to distinguish a new state government from a previous one, and to distinguish one state from another. So with each election, you get state politicians running around like headless chickens, trying to "make things better" in schools by randomly doing "something", because what the previous government in the same state did obviously cannot be right. And what that other state governed by a different party does cannot be right either. ad inf...

A case could be made that this state-level independence is a strength, not a flaw: you can experiment and see what works and doesn't, and also accommodate to local realities if needed. In practice, I agree with you, states are not doing a good job and we don't see tangible benefits from all this variety.

To be pedantic, this disjointed system IS the German educational system. And I would worry about fixing it before putting the blame on immigrants.

How many hours of English per week do German primary schools actually teach? I know for sure that thanks to federalism it varies hugely across Germany.

NRW: one of my daughters has 2 hours per week, grade 1-4. But they changed it a while ago, and kids will now have English only in grades 3-4, but the number of hours is supposed to double.

They should get rid of early English and teach the kids the language of their neighbours.

My ( German ) grandfather spoke polish and check, my grandmother spoke French and Dutch. It used to be normal to know enough of the language from the other side of the border to get by, at least until WW2.

The only people who should worry about English is those in the Center of the country.

Learning French might be worthwhile since there are quite a few speakers on the planet. Although English, Chinese or Spanish are preferable in that respect.

Polish, Chech and Dutch are a waste of time, they aren't spoken anywhere but their origin regions and those are rather small to begin with...

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