Family Language Policies and Teaching Practices in Early Bilingual Education: a case study of a dual-language German/Italian Kindergarten

Abstract

As a result of global migration waves, the increasing number of interethnic couples, the general agreement on the benefits of an early contact with different languages and cultures and the growing interest towards the preservation of minority languages, bilingual programs meet now different needs. These can range from the maintenance of the heritage language to the wish for bilingual education by monolingual families in order the child to have an advantage in the future. The effectiveness of bilingual programs is also linked to parents’ and teachers’ practices and to the support by the surrounding community. Moreover, it has to be noticed that programs which were originally thought for monolingual groups are now attended by individuals who are already bilingual or multilingual when they enter pre-school, which is a new challenge of the 21st century (Schwartz & Palviainen, 2016). All these aspects were taken into account throughout this study, which aims to investigate parents’ choice regarding bilingual education and their practices to pursue additive bilingualism, in interaction with strategies adopted by educators at pre-school in order to engage children with diverse linguistic backgrounds. The support by the surrounding community was taken into account as well. Data were collected among families that decided to enroll their children in a German-Italian kindergarten in Berlin and educators working there.