Learning German as a Foreign Language

Following the entry into force of the German Immigration Act on 1 January 2005, many new arrivals now have the chance to acquire the necessary German language skills.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) funds a large number of these “integration courses”, as they are known, in order to give immigrants the linguistic training they need to be able to “take part in the life of society”. In other words, to be able to cope unaided with everyday life in German and to feel at home in their new environment. The Goethe-Institut has been contributing to the linguistic integration of immigrants for many years.

German in 205 days

“When I arrived in Germany I did not speak a word of German”, says 31-year-old Liuhong from Shanghai. She has lived for less than a year in Munich, yet the engineer already copes with everyday life in German. Even on the telephone she speaks German happily and confidently, and now she wants to apply for a job. It took her around 205 days to learn German in an integration course. Under the German Residence Act, these 660 hours of language lessons are compulsory for foreigners who arrived in Germany after 2005 and have neither work nor a course of study to attend. Many of those who have lived for longer in Germany, come from an EU country or are highly qualified take part in the course voluntarily.

600 hours of the lesson time are devoted to German language skills, while the remaining 60 hours (the “orientation course”) teach participants about German history, society and culture. This is intended to make it easier for new arrivals to deal with and understand their fellow citizens and the authorities. The courses are available at many institutes, from adult education centres to private language schools. The Goethe-Institut headquarters in Munich also offers the integration courses – Liuhong signed up for one of them on the recommendation of her German husband.

The situation was similar for Liudmila, who is 33 – a graduate in cultural studies, she was familiar with the Goethe-Institut from Saint Petersburg. Then she married her boyfriend Martin in Munich and wanted to stay. That was six months ago. A short time later, she found herself sitting with around 20 others in the classrooms of the Goethe-Institut, attending daily lessons from half past nine to one o’clock. Her classmates are “fantastic”, says Liudmila, beaming beneath her strawberry blond hair.

High rates of attendance

When the new immigration law was passed in 2005, a variety of different programmes to support immigrants were merged and redesigned to create the integration courses. Maria Böhmer (Christian Democratic Party, CDU), Chancellery Minister of State and Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration, recently mentioned the high rates of attendance: more than half a million people, she said, had already attended an integration course to learn German. Successful completion of the course can reduce the eight year wait for naturalization to seven years. In Germany, over 1,500 institutions are approved to run integration courses. Teachers must have studied “German as a foreign language” or “German as a second language”, or need to have completed a special course of further training. The Goethe-Institut was commissioned by the BAMF to prepare the basic contents and curriculum for this further training, and offers the course in the form of compact seminars.

The Goethe-Institut has been running language courses for immigrants for over twenty years. In 2006, the Federal Ministry of the Interior commissioned the Goethe-Institut to develop a framework curriculum for the then new integration courses. Up until July 2009 the integration courses lead to the internationally recognized “German certificate”, it is now replaced by the “Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer” (DTZ, i.e. German Test for Immigrants). It was developed by the Goethe-Institut together with telc Gmbh and commissioned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The test corresponds to levels A1 to B1 of the “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages”, which classifies ability in European languages according to six levels, each based on the one below. On average, integration course graduates pass this test after 600 hours of lessons, demonstrating that they have sufficient language skills to cope unaided in such situations as a visit to the doctor, a discussion with their children’s teacher at school, a visit to the authorities or when spending time at a sports club – that they can, in other words, “have their say”.

Participants from all over the world

According to the BAMF, the integration courses are intended to break through “the vicious cycle of no language – no work – no opportunity”. As a rule, students have to contribute one euro per lesson towards the cost, starting 2012 this will be 1,20€.

And they come from all over the world, particularly from Turkey and Russia. However, among them are also refugees of Jewish extraction, Iranian and Iraqi asylum-seekers, and immigrants already living in Germany who wish to improve their language skills for a new job – not to mention newly-weds like Liudmila and Liuhong. Both women learned some German even before arriving in Germany, as the new rules governing the “subsequent immigration of spouses” require immigrants to provide evidence of rudimentary language skills (equivalent to Level A1) in advance. Courses to prepare students for the “Start Deutsch 1” test are offered outside Germany, above all by the Goethe-Institut. Such courses comprises some 160 hours of lesson time at the Goethe-Institut in Turkey; last year, around 4,000 people took the language test there. This is why it is particularly learners of German with a German spouse who contact the Goethe-Institut, where they find a course specially designed for them at the headquarters in Munich, allowing them to acquire the language skills they need in readiness for the integration courses.

Multicultural flair

It is the multicultural flair in her integration course that Liudmila particularly values. There is also a good mix of generations, with students in her class aged between 25 and 60. Everyone is new in the German culture group, which is why there is no false modesty among them, she says. No-one is too shy to try out their first few words of German right there in the classroom. When the teacher explains a German custom, such as the hiding of Easter eggs for example, lively discussions often ensue. Liuhong also praises the fact that the teachers devote a lot of time to each individual student. The students choose the topic of their presentations themselves: Liudmila took the class to the Wassily Kandinsky exhibition in Munich. “It felt strange talking about painting for the first time in German. It went well, though, as this is my specialist field”, she says. Liudmila found new friends here, and discussions in the classroom are often continued in the Goethe-Institut cafeteria. Liudmila and Liuhong do not have many opportunities to speak a lot of German, partly because they do not know many people here yet, and partly because so many people in Germany speak English and insist on trying it out. “In the supermarket I spoke to the woman at the till in German, and she replied in English”, says Liudmila. “Yet now I can cope well in German in all situations – when I’m doing the shopping, at the doctor’s or doing sport”.