Field of work: cultural and linguistic diversity

Linguistic diversity has increased significantly in German-speaking countries over the last ten years; around 25% of children in Germany are multilingual when they start school (Autor:innengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung, 2024). The integration of children with a refugee biography background, especially from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine (ibid.), underscores the need to actively incorporate multilingualism into the classroom. The increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in classrooms challenges teachers to address the diverse backgrounds of their students. But how can the multilingualism of learning groups be used as a valuable resource? Translanguaging strategies are suitable for promoting a child's overall linguistic repertoire (García, 2020) and improving learning performance in school subjects (e.g., Hansen-Thomas et al., 2020). Nevertheless, there is still little knowledge about the perspectives and attitudes of children and young people themselves.

As part of the accompanying research for the MULTIK project, there is an opportunity to write project or final theses and thus participate in the research. 

If you are interested or have any further questions, please contact Dr. phil. Ulrich Stitzinger.

The increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in classrooms challenges teachers to respond to the diverse starting points of their students. Modern technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI), offer teachers valuable tools for overcoming language barriers and promoting the potential of multilingualism in schools and classrooms. AI-supported tools make it possible to individualise content and facilitate communication in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. Research findings (e.g., He & Cardoso, 2021) show that the use of such technologies, in combination with traditional teaching methods can improve learning outcomes in the long term. The aim of the project is to develop teaching and learning concepts that integrate the challenges and potential of multilingualism with the possibilities offered by modern technologies.

Within the project, suitable teaching and learning materials are being developed, tested, and evaluated to optimally support the creation of multilingual learning resources, the automated analysis of linguistic progress, and the promotion of individual language skills (Meurers et al., 2019). Special theory-practice seminars in teacher training for secondary schools and vocational schools prepare students in the area of key competencies to account for linguistic and cultural diversity in their future teaching practice and to use digital, AI-supported tools effectively. Prospective teachers are empowered to address their own linguistic and cultural knowledge and practice gaps and to reflect on their attitudes towards multilingualism and interculturalism. Additionally, the heritage languages that students bring with them are harnessed in the classroom. The project combines theory and practice to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in interdisciplinary, linguistically diverse contexts.

Currently, regular "Round Table" exchange forums on multilingualism are held at the Hochschul-Ambulanz with representatives from six special schools and three inclusive mainstream schools focusing on language.

As part of the accompanying research for the MULTIK project, there is an opportunity to write project or final theses and thus participate in the research. 

If you are interested or have any further questions, please contact Dr. phil. Ulrich Stitzinger.

Multilingualism is not considered a risk factor for language acquisition problems and can even promote better language skills in some cases (Hopp et al., 2019). However, around 7% of all children exhibit genuine clinical language abnormalities (Norbury et al., 2016) in the form of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). When multilingualism and DLD occur in combination, DLD often goes undetected because professionals frequently lack knowledge of the children's non-German languages (Bedore et al., 2011; Scharff Rethfeld, 2020). Such knowledge is necessary to gain insight into a child's overall language development. For many heritage languages, such as Arabic, there is limited research available on typical language development and its stages of acquisition. For some first languages, it is not yet possible to differentiate between linguistic phenomena acquired during preschool age and those that are fundamental (Scharff Rethfeldt, 2020).

The HASEK project aims to determine which syntactic-morphological structures are milestones for children with Arabic as their first language until they start school. To this end, an action-oriented method for testing children's first language skills is being applied to Arabic and specifically tested on children with Arabic as their first language. This also assesses the extent to which the method can differentiate between acquired and non-acquired grammatical skills in Arabic. The diagnostic assessments are conducted with children aged 5 to 9 in daycare centres and primary schools as part of student project work at university. The action motif "zoo" is chosen for the assessment setting. With the help of animal figures on a playfield, the children are motivated to give the animals specific instructions in Arabic. This encourages the children to use specific grammatical structures in Arabic. The children's utterances are recorded, transcribed and evaluated.

The development of the procedure and the evaluation method takes place within the framework of exchange forums at the Hochschul-Ambulanz with the Arabic expert, Ms. Chaima Mejri.

As part of the accompanying research for the HASEK project, there is an opportunity to write project or final theses and thus participate in the research. 

If you are interested or have any further questions, please contact Dr. phil. Ulrich Stitzinger.