Entwicklung der Sprachkompetenzen in der Erst- und Zweitsprache von Migrantenkindern

Résumé

An intervention study was conducted at kindergarten level in order to assess the influence of first language proficiency on immigrant children‘s success in acquiring German as their second language. The intervention tested a new approach to promoting language development designed to improve immigrant children‘s linguistic skills through coordinating support measures and creating synergies across the contexts of „pre-school“ and „family“. When the children‘s language competences in both their first languages and German were assessed at entry into primary school, it was found that the intervention had had positive effects on the development of first language competences, as well as on general cognitive development and on the children‘s ability self-concept. However, in terms of competence development in the second language, German, no benefits had resulted. While the immigrant children‘s first language competences were comparable to those of monolingual children, their deficits in German had not been compensated and were particularly significant with regard to vocabulary.