After a meeting with the people from Bochumer Bildungszentrum e.V. (BBZ) about their work and project of an English or international school, I realized that there are demand and offers for bilingual offers at the different German school types. There is not only a comprehensive school. Traditionally, the secondary school in German knows three different types of schools: the Hauptschule (literally: main school), the secondary modern school (Realschule) and the German Grammar School (called Gymnasium). The school project of the BBZ could end up with such a secondary school. Different from the British system, pupils go to different secondary schools in Germany.
Today I want to focus on an existing secondary modern school: the Elsa-Brändström-Realschule in Essen. The school bilingual branch offers a biliginual class where in grade 5 and 6 two additional lessons English are taught per week. From the 7th grade on additionally another subject – later two – are taught with more lessons per week and in English language. The class aims at strengthening the English language skills of pupils either to get more easily into job which need English or to more easily attend a high school afterwards.
# Jessica on July 25th, 2009
Are you aware of the Geschwister-School -Gymnasium in Unna? They offer a bilingual branch as well. It started in 1991 and I was part of the first cohort!
http://www.gsg-unna.de/index.php?view=bilingual.php
# Dirk Schmidt on July 25th, 2009
No, I wasn’t. Now I have something to write for one of my next articles