The early learning of English as a foreign language by hearing ...

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2hearing-impaired children before presenting examples of three federal states’ attempts atmodifying the aforementioned curricula.Schooling of hearing-impaired children in GermanyAt present, the schooling of hearing-impaired children across different German federal statesis organised in four types of environments. As shown in Table 1, about 77% of children with ahearing impairment were taught at hearing impaired support centres in 2007/2008.Additionally, Germany practises three kinds of joint school placement: “integrational” classes,“preventive” integration or open classes and “external” classes. Within integrational classes,individual students are part of a regular school class. A teacher from the regular schooldelivers the lessons, while a special needs teacher provides the support. However, theextent of the support varies among the federal states and is based on the student’s academicyear. The preventive integration or open classes target hearing as well as hearing-impairedchildren who are taught in one group at a hearing impaired support centre. In this situation,the special needs teacher is in charge of the class. The third option is an external class,which is a class from a hearing impaired support centre located within an ordinary school’spremises. In this class, hearing and hearing-impaired children are taught either by a specialneeds teacher or partly by a team consisting of regular and special needs teacher. (Hänel-Faulhaber 2008, 126)Pupils joining either the preventive integration or the external classes show a comparablysimilar degree of psychologically felt integration. Hänel-Faulhaber define psychologically feltintegration as successful inclusion. (Hänel-Faulhaber 2008, 126 f.) The pupils feel included insocial networks as well as in cooperative actions. Hänel-Faulhaber concludes that this resultis possibly due to both group identification and a consideration of inidividual communicationneeds. Hänel-Faulhaber maintains that there remains a necessity to provide motivation forthe pupils to achieve.The sixteen German federal states have only recently started keeping statistics on the typesof environments. The author has chosen comparison statistics of the three largest of theGerman federal states; North-Rhine-Westfalia (“NRW”), Bavaria (“B”), and Baden-Württemberg (“BW”). These three federal states represent approximately 50% of the entireGerman population of 82 million people. A statistical review shows a slight increase inintegrative learning by hearing-impaired children between the year of the first statisticalcoverage of integrated schooling in 1999 and the last school year of 2007/2008 (“2008”), witha general increase in the total number at the same time. While in 1999 there was a totalnumber of 12,620 children with a hearing impairment, 9,997 were taught in support centerswith 2,623 children in a form of integration in general schools. In 2008 there were 14,382children with a hearing impairment at schools in Germany, 11,131 were taught in a specialsupport school, with 3,251 taught in a form of integration in general schools. (Sekretariat derStändigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland(KMK) 2003; KMK 2009)A comparison of the statistical tables about hearing-impaired students and their schooling inspecial and in mainstream schools in three individual federal states of Germany (see Table1) offers a detailed view of the differences in special needs education within Germany.Differences can also be observed in the different kinds of mainstream schools which offerintegrational classes, with primary schools showing a slight increase in joint schoolplacements from 1,529 students in 1999 to 1,722 students in 2008. Comprehensive schoolsshow an initial figure of 129 in 1999 which rises to 196 in 2008. The figures indicate thatoptions for hearing-impaired children taught at a mainstream school decrease as theacademic years increase. (KMK 2003; KMK 2009)
3Table 1: Number of students in types of learning environments1999 2001 2006 2007/2008SupportIntegrationalSupportIntegrationalSupportIntegrationalSupportIntegrationalCenterclassesCenterclassesCenterclassesCenterclassesGermany 9,997 2,623 10,475 3,054 11,167 3,269 11,131 3,251Total 12,620 13,529 14,436 14,382BW 1,540 319 1,629 458 1,830 887 1,864 828Total 1,859 2,087 2,717 2,692B 1,421 712 1,687 777 1,789 144 1,819 264Total 2,133 2,464 1,933 2,083NRW 2,395 221 2,480 243 2,788 379 2,802 390Total 2,616 2,723 3,167 3192Sources:Statistic 2003: http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/pdf/PresseUndAktuelles/Dok170.pdfStatistic 2006: http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/pdf/PresseUndAktuelles/Dok185.pdfStatistic 2009: http://www.kmk.org/statistik/schule/statistiken/sonderpaedagogischefoerderung-in-schulen.htmlundhttp://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/pdf/Statistik/Aus_SoPae_2007_Werte.pdfLanguage acquisition and instruction researchA well-grounded plan of language learning needs to be established before planning languageteaching. In order to consider all dimensions of learning another language, a variety ofdisciplines such as educational, sociological and psychological aspects are included in theresearch process. They provide points of reference for the design of a course of languagelearrning and can be regarded as a support for the scientific study of the learning andteaching of foreign languages. (Edmondson & House 2006, 3ff.)The linguistic level of a language plays an integral part in the language acquisition processas “...linguistics examine the inner system of a language and the language learning, thecognitive organisation of language and its usage in social formation styled by humans.”(Edmonson & House 2006, 69; translation by author). The aspects of a language are ofimportance regarding the various fields of foreign language learning as they representcontent and goal of the learning process. The target language is sensibly used as aninstrument both of teaching and of learning. This can also be realised by means of monolingualism.(Edmondson & House 2006, 70)While the learning of a foreign language is based on a complex composition of regularity, anobjective of learning can be a structure of which different thinking processes form the base.The next step is the phrasing of theoretical and emotional concerns. The language can beused as a device and serves as an aid to achieving learning targets.By means of the chosen topics, phonology, morphology, lexicology, syntax, semantics andpragmatics as linguistic fields offer different options to comprehend a language according toa priority. A commencement is possible at both ends, pragmatic as well as phonology,
Page 1: 1The early learning of English as a
Page 6 and 7: 6The author reviewed curriculum mod
Page 8 and 9: 8ResultsThe following comments refe
Page 10 and 11: 10DiscussionThe results show that t
Page 12 and 13: 12Krashen SD. Second Language Acqui

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