"Durch Motivation, vielseitige Übungen und individuelle Förderung jedes Kindes müssen Misserfolge möglichst vermieden und die Freude an der Sprache geweckt und erhalten werden."
"Through motivation, a varied range of activities and individual support for each child, failures have wherever possible to be avoided and the joy at the language has to be aroused and maintained".
At LIS we follow a curriculum based on the curriculum of Saxony. Adaptations and changes have to take place in an international school with English as main language and with an international population.
The children have 5 German lessons per week. Our German beginners have 3 GSL (German as a second language) lessons per week and join in the native and advanced speakers' classes for 2 lessons. Two German classrooms and one GSL room provide a specially prepared German surrounding. In the school year 2007/08 we started German lessons in the Pre-School 3 classes with 2 German lessons a week.
We are about to develop a language programme which respects the needs and develops the abilities of little children both in English and in German.
One of the guiding principles throughout our whole teaching in the Primary German Department is Maria Montessori's.
Hilf mir, es selbst zu tun!
Help me to do it myself!
The children learn and practise in an individual way with different kinds of material (Klammerkarten, LOGICO Learning System, Lernkartei zum schriftlichen Üben, Computer-Lernprogramme, Hörbücher, CDs, Kassetten) allowing them
This is not a book-based approach, we use them only to find poems or stories or just to enjoy looking at them.
We have some "Lesebücher" and "Fibeln" in the classrooms, but we don't read them altogether at the same time, a procedure which normally is boring for fast readers and frustrating for the slower ones.
The children should use a good language. Especially in our English surrounding it is a permanent need to improve and enrich their German language and vocabulary. We teach the children the sounds of the letters with a "Lauttabelle" (sound table). This tool enables the children to write whatever they want to and to use all the words they have in their mind. In doing this writing they learn to read "en passent".
As another main principle we train the children to correct their written work (spelling words, stories) in the first step on their own, than with or for a partner when necessary with the help of a wordbook. Finally as the very last control the teacher takes over giving hints for corrections. Only stories we want to display have to be written without any mistake.
To practise reading for comprehension we use mainly Lesespur-Hefte.
Whenever possible the teacher reads books for the children to lay the grounds for the future love of books and reading in general or to keep the already existing love burning. We also have a small, but well used library in the German rooms. We encourage the children to read or look at whatever books they like and to take books home. There is no "you must read this book", we want the children to get used to having books and reading them as a kind of natural habit.
(And we are prepared to fight the windmills disguised nowadays as PC, TV or whatsoever!)
At least twice a year we try to visit a theatre play. Mostly we go for a 40 minutes walk to the "Theater der Jungen Welt" enjoying the play as well as the trip through the park at the back of our school site. The last events have been the visit of "Peter und der Wolf" with grades 1 and 2 and "Emil und die Detektive" with grades 3, 4 and 5.
We also try to visit reading sessions with book authors whenever possible. In the past we have met Paul Maar, Christa Kozcik, Cornelia Funke and others. (Events take place at Buchmesse, Leipzig liest, Stadtbibliothek)
Each Grade 2 is paying an introduction visit to the main children's library (Stadtbibliothek am Leuschnerplatz) to get over the fear of entering a library. We encourage the children to use the facilities of the library.
For native German speakers parents can support us best by using good German language at home.