Bilingual education
Alexander and Sophie are taught in their class and grade by two teachers. Ms Miller is from England. She grew up bilingually herself and speaks both English and German as mother tongues. She is the English-speaking part. Herr Müller also speaks both languages fluently and is the German-speaking part. Together they form the teaching team for the “Lernfrösche” group. Alexander and Sophie start learning English from their first day at school according to the immersion method, i.e. Ms Miller only speaks English with the children and Herr Müller only German. The children are fully immersed in the English language, hearing only English words and sentences from Ms Miller. Sophie finds this very odd at first. Her English vocabulary is still very limited. This is why she still frequently asks Ms Miller questions in German. Today, according to her work plan, she has to solve some math problems, for which she is supposed to make use of a learning aid called a numbers box. She cannot find the numbers box and asks Ms Miller where it is. Even though Sophie asks in German, Ms Miller answers in English and illustrates her reply with obvious gestures: “Sophie, look over there, the yellow numbers box is on the shelf. Can you see it?” Immediately Sophie understands where the box is and automatically concludes that “numbers” means “Zahlen” and that the word “shelf” must mean “Regal”. In a short period of time, Sophie develops quite a vocabulary and is able to ask Ms Miller simple questions in English.
The PbG is a bilingual school, where English is taught right from the first grade. The PbG uses the so-called immersion method, which enables the children to grow up almost with two native languages letting them experience English not as a foreign language. To accomplish this, all subjects except for German and sports are taught in both languages right from the start. This means that depending on their age and individual abilities, students can benefit from the immersion method in up to 70 percent of all lessons.
Also, one of the two teachers will speak only German with the students, the other only English. The English-speaking teacher is a native speaker, or else a teacher whose English proficiency has reached a native-like level. From grade 5 on, the children learn a second foreign language, either French or Spanish. If desired, further languages can be learned in extracurricular work groups.