Linguicism in the Teaching of German as a Second Language

How does discrimination against languages and their speakers manifest itself? And how can teachers combat various forms of “linguicism” in the classroom? This is the focus of a Vienna-based association called Migrationspädagogische Zweitsprachdidaktik.

By Janna Degener-Storr

Should German learners practise speaking like “Germans” in class? And can they be awarded top marks on a test even if you can tell from their accents that their first language is Arabic? “While the focus is on making yourself understood,” says İnci Dirim, a professor of German as a Second Language at the University of Vienna, “learning to speak like a native is still held up as the ideal in the teaching of German as a second or foreign language.” But too little thought is given to what actually distinguishes so-called “native speakers”, she adds. “In the development of the German nation, the focus was on German speakers, so speakers of other languages were discriminated against.” Consequently, the concept of Muttersprache (mother tongue) is closely connected to nationalism, Dirim points out, but so firmly rooted in society that her students, even after years of critical reflection, still employ the term unthinkingly in their answers to exam questions. But the fact is that plenty of people in the immigrant community consider German their language, which they are altering in everyday usage through their accents and loanwords from other languages. As a result, we are now hearing a wider diversity of German in the cities of the German-speaking world.

The problem arises chiefly when different accents and languages are treated differently, disparaged or rejected. When a teacher asks the class, “Can anyone say that again in proper German?” for example, they’re implicitly judging the way the previous speaker expressed themself. Language-based discrimination takes place not only in the classroom and on exams, but also in schoolyards and in educational policy decisions – as in the recurrent public debate over whether kids should be allowed to speak other languages at school, and how teachers should handle infringements of those school rules. One high-profile case in point was that of a 9-year-old girl who spoke to a friend in Turkish at school: her punishment was an added assignment to write an essay on “why we speak German at school”. Her parents took legal action against this “disciplinary measure to teach the girl a lesson”, and the administrative court ruled in their favour, affirming that their daughter’s personal rights had been infringed.

Are all languages (and their speakers) equal?

“We speak only German here so everyone can understand everything and learn German properly.” Arguments along these lines are often used to justify bans on the use of other languages at school. In practice, however, a tacit distinction is drawn between “desirable” and “undesirable” languages. “If schoolchildren were using English or Latin on the school premises outside the classroom during a break between classes,” asked the 9-year-old girl’s lawyer, “would they be required to write such an essay by way of punishment?”

Languages – and consequently their speakers – are also implicitly ranked on the basis of whether they’re taught at school and considered important languages to know. “Every German remedial lesson goes to show that greater importance is attached to the German language, specifically standard German,” argues İnci Dirim. A wider variety of multilingual programmes would serve to make better use of languages rooted in the pupils’ sociocultural environment – from Turkish taught as a second language in bilingual classes at Hamburg schools, for example, to subject-matter taught in Farsi or Arabic at some Viennese schools.

Denigrating speakers

Researchers like İnci Dirim regard this hierarchization of languages and their speakers through the prism of “linguicism” (also known as “glottophobia” or “languagism”) – a term coined by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, a Finnish linguist and educator, back in the early 1980s. Since then, researchers have discovered various forms of language discrimination. Doris Pokitsch, for instance, found that multilingual teens in Austria grow up idealizing monolingual German-speakers – and denigrating themselves as a result. Depreciatory terms used by researchers like “förderbedürftiges Kind” (i.e. pupil in need of remedial instruction) generate feelings of inadequacy in some schoolkids, as Vesna Bjegač points out, even though they don’t read the technical literature themselves. Likewise, observes Natascha Khakpour, discourse about “Deutsch-Können” (i.e. being able to speak German) is used at schools and other educational institutions to exclude young non-native speakers.

İnci Dirim has been working on the subject of linguicism for over fifteen years now. Her work is based on the critique of racism as an integral part of what’s known as “migration pedagogy”, a teaching approach developed by educational researcher Paul Mecheril. “It’s not about finger-pointing,” Dirim explains. “But teachers should try to be self-reflexive enough to recognize their own involvement so as not to unthinkingly reproduce linguicism.” And that means heightening their own awareness of this phenomenon, she adds. For example, if I realize I’m prejudiced against certain accents, I can be more mindful of how I react to them. If I want to recognize linguicism or other forms of racism in my classes, I can watch video recordings of what goes in my classroom with an eye to any such manifestations or ask colleagues to look out for instances thereof when sitting in on my classes: Are hierarchies forming? Is any form of exclusion taking place? And if I want to combat linguicism specifically, I can look into approaches like “translanguaging” that serve as a corrective for language-based power imbalances. The object of this approach is to explicitly valorize multilingual practices, to support multilingual pupils and acknowledge their mixed idiom as a language of classroom education at the institutional level. In 2016, German-language scholar and educator İnci Dirim and several colleagues founded an association in Vienna called Migrationspädagogische Zweitsprachdidaktik to study the teaching and learning of German as a second language from the perspective of “migration pedagogy”. And in order to sensitize teacher trainees at the University of Vienna to these issues, they are not only given critiques of racism and linguicism as assigned reading, but encouraged to think about biases that may be unconsciously conveyed by exercises that are used in teaching German: How are people and languages portrayed in these exercises? Do these portrayals marginalize them as foreigners? “If, say, five pupils out of a class of 21 need extra help in German, that support should be given without drawing the group’s attention to these individuals,” explains Dirim. In other words, that extra help should not take the form of separate remedial classes. What’s more, the teacher should build on each pupil’s skills and potential by supporting and incorporating the languages they bring with them into the classroom. One way of teaching kids to read and write bilingually, for example, involves comparing letters from different languages that look alike but represent different sounds, such as “ı” in Turkish and “i/I” in German.

What can teachers do?

So, should German no longer be the focus of teaching German as a foreign or second language? And should remedial classes in German be abolished? No, that’s not what critics of linguicism like İnci Dirim are after. Instead, teachers, educational policy-makers and other powers that be in the educational sphere should be aware of linguicism issues and strive to counteract all forms of language discrimination. “Teachers can’t change the fact that their students may be discriminated against when applying for a job because of their accent,” says Professor Dirim. “But they can make sure that at least in their classroom no one is discriminated against or denigrated.” The goal, as the expert sums it up, is for all languages and modes of speaking to be perceived as equally valid and for no one to be afraid to use them.

Dirim also considers it important to create space and respect for multilingualism. Hanna Demichiel’s master’s thesis, for example, finds that when adult German learners get an opportunity to talk about complex subject-matter in their first language during a one- or two-minute discussion time in class, it has positive effects on their German acquisition. Multilingualism in the classroom is accepted and successfully practised in some Swedish and Canadian schools. “In many countries around the world, it’s considered normal for schoolchildren to express their thoughts in the language of their choice first – and then for the class to work together to translate what they’ve said into English, for example,” says Dirim, referring to Jessica Löser’s dissertation. Unfortunately, however, this approach is still quite rare in Germany and Austria.