Children learn a foreign language in primary school from the third grade onwards at the latest. Parents, teachers and school politicians argue about whether this makes sense. What experts say.
Perhaps German parents, teachers and school politicians should take a look at Papua New Guinea. With 840 languages in the country, people there would often have problems communicating even if they were just a few valleys away from home if it weren’t for the Creole language Tok Pisin. It is just as important in the South Pacific as English is elsewhere in the world. The education system in the island state can be improved, the illiteracy rate is more than 60 percent, but two thirds of the population speak Tok Pisin in addition to their local idiom. Success in foreign languages is not necessarily due to details in the curriculum.