Language Education in Germany

It recently struck me just how lucky I am that I went to school in Germany. I mean, don't get me wrong, there were many things I hated, and I envy American pupils for some of their possibilities; however, I love languages, and for that matter, growing up in Germany was great.

You see, children in Germany are required to take lessons in at least one foreign language--usually English--throughout their school education. Back in my days, we started in fifth year; nowadays, children start to learn English in first year. That does not mean that everyone in Germany can speak English well, let alone fluently. After all, not everyone taking maths lessons becomes a maths genius, right? But, every pupil in Germany has the chance to acquire good English skills, and a certain level of language comprehension is necessary to graduate from secondary school (no matter which type of secondary school--there are several in Germany).

And it doesn't end there. If you want to graduate with Abitur (which is necessary to go to university, unless you want to be restricted in the subjects you can study), you are required to have taken lessons in a second foreign language for at least three years. The most common choices offered by German grammar schools are French and Latin, although there are grammar schools which offer a different set of foreign languages to choose from (such as Spanish, Italian, Russian or even Old Greek). Some grammar schools, for example, teach Latin or French as first foreign language, and in some regions close to the borders, other foreign languages (such as French) are mandatory from first year on (instead of English). The second foreign language is usually taught from seventh year on, for at least four years.

Many grammar schools even offer lessons in a third foreign language from ninth year on. You can usually choose to take lessons in the other language offered in seventh year (as opposed to the one you chose), and many grammar schools offer another language to choose from at this point (for example Spanish, Italian or Russian on grammar schools where French and Latin were the choices offered in seventh year).

As it was, I learnt three languages in grammar school: English (from fifth till eleventh year), French (from seventh till eleventh year) and Spanish (from ninth till tenth year). The only reason why I only took two years in Spanish was that our Spanish course wasn't offered in eleventh year due to course size (only about a third of our course wanted to continue). Usually, I would have stayed in grammar school for two more years (till after year thirteen) to acquire Abitur, but I chose to change to a vocational school after eleventh year.

At my vocational school, I took lessons in five foreign languages over the course of two years, two of which were mandatory for my certification as foreign language assistant (including business communications and business translations in German and both foreign languages). I started out with English and French in my first year. Since part of my form had Spanish as second foreign language (instead of French, which was only offered for those who had already taken four years of French at secondary school, while Spanish was a beginner's course) and I wanted to improve my Spanish as well, I talked to the Spanish teacher and was allowed to take their exams, and hand in my homework for correction, in addition to my French lessons and exams.

Through my German teacher, who also taught Italian to a different form, I ended up participating in their Italian lessons too (which were in the afternoon after my normal lessons). I took the exams in Italian along with the others, and got a certificate stating my Italian marks at the end of the school year since that course was not part of my normal school report.

In my second year at vocational school, I switched my second foreign language completely to Spanish (and graduated in English and Spanish). I continued with Italian lessons, and even took a ten-week-course in Chinese (Mandarin) which was offered at our school.

All right, and now some vocabulary help since educational terms vary greatly from BE to AE:

BE -- AE

year -- grade
form -- class
lesson -- class
marks -- grades
school report -- report card
grammar school -- high school (the secondary school that leads to German Abitur)
pupil -- student

(Somehow, the BE terms seem to be clearer.... I mean, there are four different words where AE only has two words....)