Hi folks,

today I had the idea to open this panel for people who would like to communicate in English not only in chatrooms, but also under conditions like this one, where one has enough time to think over what one wants to say, where one has the possibility to correct oneself and, last but not least, where one can keep re-reading the texts written.

We can decide on topics of discussion as we like. Whenever one has a good idea for the next topic, he or she is welcome to start it.

As for now the topic that my interest is focussed on the most is bilingual teaching and I am keen on reading about experiences of other colleagues teaching any kind of subject bilingually.
What inspired me to start a series of bilingual lessons in music was the fact that I am teaching all tenth forms this term and that there are a couple of students from abroad whose German is not so good yet and who I want to enable to participate in my lessons a bit more than they could as long as I was teaching in German.
When I announced my plan to the three classes, their reactions ranged from surprise to puzzlement, but none of the students said that this was a bad idea. I told them that English was no longer the subject of teaching but just a medium, that I would not correct them while talking unless I would not understand them. From the first lesson of this series on their participating in the lessons was more widespread and more intensive. I saw students participate that hardly had said a word before - and vice versa.
What might strike you is that the topic we are working on is not at all English: it is the opera "Carmen" by Georges Bizet, sung in French. So, when watching the film with Placebo (*gg*)Domingo and Julia Miguenes, listening to their singing in French, reading the German subtitles and talking about it in English, we feel rather polyglott.
At the end of this "Carmen"-series the students will have to write a test about it in English as well.

So much for now. I am looking forward to other contributions.

yours
amber

Of course the fact that you have a good enough reason to speak English because of few non-Germans in your classes helps to break down the often somewhat artificial and awkward use of English in German schools.
I have always found the TEFL-situations a bit odd where Germans communicate with other Germans in English.
To show that English is the language of choice in many academic fields is a much better way. As long as one doesn't make a fuss about it but uses it as one goes along.

I do, however, prefer the idea of general bilingual sessions in a range of classes to concentrating all the school's bilingual efforts on one class.
In my opinion it results in classes which have a vast majority of girls and in the selection of the generally better students. Shortly, it increasingly prevents diversity where our school system is very selective to start with.

I have to add some information, I think.
In my school, which has been allowed to call itself "Europaschule" since the beginning of this term, bilingual teaching is part of the general school programme. We do have teachers that have been trained especially for bilingual teaching as one teacher of English and history, but this kind of teaching has not been offered for classes up to 10 so far.

I think we should meet/see each other more often, what about you?

that this topic is more interesting to colleagues than it seems to be at the moment. I would like to know, if it is realistic to try bilingual teaching in tenth forms at Realschule.

For my part I would like to discuss rhauda's view on the above mentioned TOEFL-like situations of which she says that they are somewhat awkward because of being unnatural. I think there is the danger of awkwardness in them, but on the other hand when talking in English I usually immerse into this language, and even when being asked by my students for special words they can not find in the dictionary, I keep thinking in English.
During our exchange visit to Scarborough in 1965 (I was in the ninth form at that time) as members of our school choir we were told by our conductor not to speak German as long as English students were around, because she did not want us to give an impression of rudeness to our hosts. I remember that this talking English was real fun to most of us.

And: dear colleagues, even if you have no experience in teaching bilingually yourselves, perhaps you could contribute your own view on it. Would you have liked being taught bilingually when being a pupil or would you not?

In a restaurant
- Waiter, what's that fly doing in my soup?
- It looks like breaststroke, doesn't it ?

... and since June this year, I am a teacher for bilingual biology although I haven't taught bilingually anymore since the exam lesson.

Judging on the experience of two bilingual topic project, I can conclude that most pupils do appreciate bilingual lessons for a change, but a lot admit they find it too challenging to have it all year long.

The experience for me as the teacher wasn't really different from teaching in German. Since there are still an awful lot of syllabus topics I've never taught so far, I'm just as good (or bad) in preparing a bilingual topic as preparing it in German. Sometimes it is even easier to find the pictures, films and pieces of information you really need rather than spending years until you come across THE material you had wished to have right the first time.

So, I am really looking forward to teaching biology bilingually in future, but just separated modules, not whole-year's classes.

Keep writing.

the semi-trill
(mordent)

to thank you for pointing out this forum to me and to let you know that I think it's a great idea.

_{...to be continued}

in English, discussing topics in English: Supercalifragilistic...my English is getting rusty and I am sometimes a bit tired of reapeating "Is tis a pen? No it isn't." (Sorry I am teaching a year 5 this term and it's great fun most of the time but it's not very challenging...)
Bilingual teaching is an interesting topic, I've never done it myself (my other subject being German)but I know that a few of my collegues taught Geography and Biology in English. The only thing about bilingual teaching which I've heard recently and thought to be quite interesting, is that somebody told me that researches have shown that biligual teaching works fine in Sek I but not in Sek II. He was talking about general knowledge in a particular subject as well as improvement in communicating in a foreign language. I could'nt ask about the source of his information and more information so that would be my question to those who teach bilingually: Do you think this to be true?
LG
lunatic

works! We practise it in all four forms of Hauptschule and I think we do it successfully. Teachers, parents and of course our students like it and we usually get positive feedback only. Of course there are subjects which fit better than others, but that depends on your own feelings and your own teaching methods.

My favourite bilingual subject is History, because there are so many topics concerning British or American history, so that's really easy being taught.

...but we never test our pupils in the foreign language.