“Why Learning German in Moselle is Vital for Employability and Personal Development”

“Grün, grün, grûn, sind alle meine Kleider; grün, grün, grün ist alles was ich hab! At the end of her school week, little Louise, 5, has only this nursery rhyme in mind. His mother watches him with admiration. She who does not master a treacherous word of German sees her offspring appropriate the Germanic sounds with ease. Originally from the center of France, this mother now established near Thionville says to herself that she too would have liked to discover a foreign language from primary school “but in my time, it was not yet on the program”, regrets. -She.

This forties is not the only one in this case: in France, it was necessary to wait until the 1990s for foreign languages ​​to enter elementary school and the 2000s for a linguistic initiation to be offered in kindergarten. When we know that the Nordic countries have been feeding their children to a language other than their own since the 1960s, we better understand the poor performance of the French in English or German…

A Moselle specificity

Now nationally, more than 96% of schoolchildren learn English but unsurprisingly in Moselle, this proportion drops to 42%. “There is a fairly clear linguistic border between the territories bordering the border and those further away,” emphasizes Denis Hoffmann, district inspector for National Education in charge of the modern languages ​​mission. Thus in Moselle, 57% of schoolchildren benefit from an awareness of German. 1.5% of them are still affected by Italian and 0.5% by Luxembourgish (in the Sierck-les-Bains sector).

This breakdown is also explained by the proactive policy pursued by the Department on the subject. To reinforce the learning of Goethe’s language from an early age, the “eurodepartment” does not hesitate to co-finance so-called “reinforced” systems. The latter make it possible to provide schools with speakers, preferably native speakers, to complement the work of teachers. Result: three hours of initiation per week are offered instead of the hour and a half imposed by the official program. Today in Moselle, 30% of children are enrolled in schools where there is a reinforced system.

Plebiscite for the bicultural

Another local specificity: bicultural schools offer school children 9 hours of immersion per week. Appeared in 1993, they are now 11 in number. Thionville has one, Metz two; the others are located in Moselle-Est. Their popularity is immense and so are their results: 100% of students reach the level required by the European standards for mastering foreign languages. Better: “67% of them reach level A1 + at the end of CM2, whereas this level is only expected for middle school students at the end of 6th or even 5th”, underlines Denis Hoffmann.

The National Education inspector bounces back on the cookie-cutter judgments: “Contrary to what we think, the programs are avant-garde, including in kindergarten. We even have the most ambitious project in Europe”. He recalls that Germany only starts the initiation to a foreign language in the third year of school, which is the equivalent of our CE2. “As for the Anglo-Saxon countries, we don’t even talk about them…”

The future will tell if the means implemented are sufficient: in 2025, for the first time, the international program for monitoring student achievement (better known as Pisa) will assess the language skills of young French people.