Assessing English-medium instruction in German grammar schools

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. Thanks

to globalization, the increasing importance of the media, the changing lifestyles of the

younger generations as well as the coalescing Europe, we cannot evade its impact. Not

unnaturally, the English language has always been and still is a vital part of the German

educational system with a tendency to expand its influence throughout the next years. Ever

since it has been introduced as a foreign language to German schools, new concepts and

methods to improve foreign language teaching have evolved. Bilingual education is one of

those concepts. Being used in many countries and educational contexts to enhance second

language 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 per

week and, additionally, other subjects being taught to a greater extent in that foreign language

than 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 has

increased and more researchers have investigated the outcomes of bilingual education. Is such

a program beneficial to children or does it have negative consequences on their overall

performance at school? Would a higher number of English classes per week be sufficient or

do other subjects have to be taught in English and, above all, what subjects should that be

without risking the students to have problems understanding their content? And finally, do

students in bilingual programs have a higher language competence than students in

comparable traditional English programs? These are all questions that are connected to the

research on bilingual programs and what factors contribute to their success or what points to

their weaknesses.

The last of the three questions emphasizes the aspect of bilingual education that will be the

focus of this bachelor's thesis, namely language competence. Due to the fact that an

assessment of the actual language competence could not be conducted in the given time

period, the center of this investigation will be the subjective point of view of teachers and

students, thus a self-assessment based on the categories of the Common European Framework

of Reference for Languages. [...]