CLIL in Germany

Gymnasium Kreuzgasse is a grammar school in Cologne with a long, rich educational tradition. For more than 35 years, a variety of subjects have been taught there in French – and the results are certainly comparable with those of lyceés across the border in France.

Tuesday, 07.55 hrs. Jost Klein is on the way to his first lesson. The walkways of Gymnasium Kreuzgasse, a grammar school in Cologne, are filling up rapidly. As he passes through the corridors and the stairwell, the 58-year-old history teacher exchanges a word here and there with the occasional pupil and is greeted by quite a number of them – in French.

Great demand for new models

Gymnasium Kreuzgasse is located right in the middle of Cologne inside the city's Inner Green Belt. For more than 35 years, it has run a bilingual German-French stream, and over half of the more than 1,000 pupils who attend the school today are taught in two languages.

Particularly in the last few years, the German-French stream has enjoyed growing popularity. "Seven years ago, we began to offer English as well as French in the bilingual stream as early as Year 5," explains the school's deputy headteacher, Elisabeth Siepmann, who has taught French there for many years. During their first two years in the bilingual stream, pupils attend six French lessons and three English lessons every week. "This concept enables us to win over many parents – if only because it also means any change of school that may become necessary will not cause major problems."

Aiming for the Baccalauréat

The students on the basic course in history taken by Jost Klein this morning are looking at Marx and the central theses of the Communist Manifesto. The lesson is part of a large block devoted to the topic of "industrialisation".

A Year 12 class in France could well be talking about these very issues at the same moment. "In both countries, history teaching at the upper-secondary level concentrates on the 19th and 20th centuries. The curriculums are practically identical," explains Klein. This is what has made it possible since 1998 for pupils at Gymnasium Kreuzgasse to have the option of doing the French Baccalauréat as well as the Abitur, the German university-entrance qualification.

There is now even a joint German-French textbook available, which is also used at the Gymnasium Kreuzgasse. "However, it only deals with the period after 1945," says Klein, who trained as a specialist in bilingual teaching. And: "At least as far as German history is concerned, you can't cover everything without using other texts."

Thinking in a foreign language

Jost Klein's history lesson is delivered in French. The first task the 16 upper-school students are set is to go through a text and identify the French equivalents of key terms in Marx's philosophy: class war, selling market, private property, etc. Indeed, German technical terms are always introduced quite deliberately in bilingual subject teaching – which also helps to enhance the students' competence in their mother tongue.

"We do not learn this specialist terminology in normal French lessons," explains Hanna. She sees the French-language subject teaching she gets not just in history, but also in politics and geography, as giving her good opportunities to expand her own vocabulary. "The disadvantage is of course that we have far more work than the non-bilingual classes just learning the vocab," comments Lennart. "But," he rapidly adds, "it is worth it when you see our language skills improving – and when you notice you are automatically starting to think in French in your lessons."

His teacher is also convinced of these benefits. "In terms of its content and the level of the language, this session could just as well have taken place with a Year 12 class in France," explains Jost Klein after the lesson.

Selecting able pupils

This is probably not least a result of the fact that the children in the bilingual classes have to satisfy specific minimum requirements with regard to their learning ability and motivation. Many years of experience have proven the worth of this approach. "There are children who – apart from their recommendation for grammar school, of course – have a particular thirst for knowledge and do not look on normal homework as a burden, and they have always coped," reports Elisabeth Siepmann.

Nevertheless, like the school's headteacher, Angelika Sandte-Wilms, she often has to allay the concerns of parents whose first language is not French. They tend to fear their child could struggle to keep up in a class with lots of pupils from francophone backgrounds.

However, the teachers' experience is quite different. "Recently," says the headteacher, "we even had a class in which there were twelve children from families where French was spoken at least some of the time. Thanks to the extra lessons they receive and the presence of the French-speaking children in the classes, the German-speaking children learn French very quickly." What is more, the pupils with French-speaking backgrounds do not necessarily achieve the best results when they come to take the Baccalauréat.