Language Support - Children from refugee families: Language promotion needs time
A foundation from Lower Saxony has spoken out in favor of extending instruction-supporting language promotion for children from refugee families for longer than just twelve months. According to new regulations, children who have lived in Germany for more than a year no longer have a claim to this form of language promotion, said Anne von Consbruch, who founded the Nina-Dieckmann-Foundation for German Instruction for Beginners in Hannover in 2009.
The authorities assumed that children, who have lived in Germany for more than a year, could already speak enough German to participate successfully in instruction. However, she pointed out that often a colloquial level is not reached until approximately two years. Many of the affected children have experienced a flight, living in a foreign country is a "culture shock" for some children, and they are not immediately ready for a foreign language.
Foundation founder Nina Dieckmann explained that the foundation currently supports 560 children, and there have been around 5,000 in total. The honorarium costs for the so-called learning godmothers and gods alone amount to approximately 240,000 Euros per year.
- The extended language promotion is crucial for children from refugee families in Hannover, Germany, as they often require more than twelve months to properly grasp the German language.
- The Nina-Dieckmann-Foundation, established in Lower Saxony's Hannover, has been providing language assistance to over 5,000 children since 2009, currently supporting 560 of them.
- The new regulations in Germany assume that children who have lived in the country for over a year can communicate in German sufficiently for instruction, disregarding the cultural shock and language adaptation challenges refugee children often face.
- The ongoing language promotion program in Germany, such as the one supported by the Nina-Dieckmann-Foundation, plays a significant role in the integration of Refugee family children into local schools and social circles, enhancing their ability to communicate effectively in the German language.
