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Factors Affecting Language Acquisition in the Institutionalized Setting of the German Integration Course

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Book cover Language Learning of Adult Migrants in Europe

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 53))

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Abstract

In this chapter, we address the process of German language acquisition of adult refugees within the formal setting of the integration course, in order to identify factors contributing to both the likelihood of attending a course and successfully completing it. We used a mixed-method approach, analysing the dataset of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey, a large-scale longitudinal study of refugees in Germany, as well as carrying out qualitative interviews with teachers, representatives of the providers, and course participants. Drawing on human-capital theory, our analysis emphasises those factors specifically related to forced migration in addition to other individual factors of the learners. Factors affecting the probability of attending an integration course at all are also examined. Our findings indicate that frequent contact with native or more advanced German speakers and a higher educational level associate positively with language acquisition. Women, particularly those with young children, appear to encounter more barriers to attending the integration course and acquiring German compared with other groups. Overall, our results indicate that despite the integration course system having adapted to the changes in the background and characteristics of course participants, the needs and personal resources of refugees do not appear to be fully accounted for.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A look at the immigration trends to Germany can help to put this development into perspective. While immigration from EU-countries to Germany remained stable at high levels, the annual number of asylum applications increased remarkably in the last decades: While the annual number of asylum applications totalled over 100,000 during the late 1990s and early 2000s, it dropped steadily with a low of around 28,000 in 2008. This trend reversed from 2013 onward. In 2015, the number of asylum applications more than quadrupled and ultimately peaked in 2016 with 745,545 applications filed before steadily decreasing from 2017 until 2019 (BAMF/BMI, 2019).

  2. 2.

    Scheible and Rother (2017) base their analysis on a dataset labelled the integration panel gathered by the German Federal Office of Migration and Refugees (BAMF). The researcher surveyed 4,000 randomly selected participants in integration courses as well as a comparison group of immigrants who did not attend an integration course at several points in time between 2007 and 2011 with the aim to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of integration courses (for a detailed description of the dataset see Schuller et al., 2011 and Lochner et al., 2013).

  3. 3.

    Note that Table 6.1 offers a theoretical overview of factors influencing L2 acquisition as predicted by the human-capital theory. In our analysis, we operationalize these three constructs relying only on some of these factors as outlined in the methods section.

  4. 4.

    Data protection for the IAB-BAMF-SOEP sample is regulated by the German Federal Data Protection Law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz BDSG). The law requires explicit and informed consent in written form from the concerned respondent. If consent is given, the interviewees are clearly informed that participation in the study is voluntary and anonymous and that there are neither advantages nor disadvantages if they wish or do not wish to participate. Moreover, participants can withdraw their consent at any time. There were no minors among the respondents.

  5. 5.

    Details on the sampling strategy, the surveying method, the representativeness, the response rate, and the modality of withdrawal and informed consent are outlined in Brücker et al. (2016, 2019), and Kroh et al. (2017).

  6. 6.

    The references in the quotes contain the following abbreviations: PP stands for interviews with participants, PI stands for interviews with representatives of the providing institutions and TEA stands for interviews with teachers. The original language of all mentioned interview excerpts is German. The authors translated these excerpts from German to English.

  7. 7.

    To assess the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we used a sum scale comprising of 13 questions that measure the degree of emotional stress (RHS-15). The threshold value is set here at 11 (out of a maximum of 52), assuming that the emotional stress is so high that it causes long-term posttraumatic stress disorders (Hollifield et al., 2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre Migration, Integration and Asylum, German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Nuremberg, Germany

    Anna Tissot, Nina Rother, Andreea Baier & Johannes Croisier

  2. University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Giuseppe Pietrantuono

Authors
  1. Anna Tissot
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  2. Giuseppe Pietrantuono
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  3. Nina Rother
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  4. Andreea Baier
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  5. Johannes Croisier
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Correspondence to Anna Tissot .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of European Languages and Studies, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Glenn S. Levine

  2. Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK

    David Mallows

Appendices

Appendices

1.1 Appendix 1

Guiding questions for expert interviews with representatives of providing institutions (short version)

  1. 1.

    Person and role in the organisation:

    • Professional background?

    • Role in the organisation

  2. 2.

    Characteristics of the organisation:

    • Foundation

    • Activities related to migration/integration and cooperation with other institutions

    • Funding

    • employees

    • clients

  3. 3.

    Your role as a provider for integration courses:

    • motivation to provide integration courses

    • previous experiences with providing German classes

    • since when?

    • which courses over which period of instruction?

    • course planning

    • attaining target group/allocation of participants

    • providing child care facilities

    • use of digital media

    • demand of the courses

    • change of situation for providers in light of arrival of refugees/ challenges

  4. 4.

    Assessments and experiences with (refugee) participants

    • age

    • gender

    • level of education/alphabetisation

    • countries of origin

    • language level German

  5. 5.

    Assessments and experiences of language learning in integration courses

    • influence on exam results of factors related to provider/teacher/participant

    • learning pace

    • challenges

  6. 6.

    Selection of teachers

    • employment situation

    • criteria for selection ((additional) qualification, experience, etc.)/career changers

    • switchovers and terminations/reasons

1.2 Appendix 2

Guiding questions for expert interviews with teachers (short version)

  1. 1.

    Sociodemographics

    • age, family status, children, own migration experience

    • qualification, education, certification, further training

    • professional experience

    • motivation

    • compensation/payment

  2. 2.

    Teaching in Integration courses

    • What course types do you teach?

    • How many classes/semester hours?

    • preparation for classes

    • choice of textbooks/teaching techniques/use of digital media

    • intercultural skills

    • ambience in courses

    • heterogeneity in courses (countries of origin, age, gender, children, education, state of health, foreign languages)

    • challenges/ideas for adjustment

  3. 3.

    Assessments and experiences with (refugee) participants

    • motivation language course/orientation course

    • favouring/hindering factors for language acquisition

    • reasons for bad results in language test

    • learning pace

    • challenges the participants face

    • what needs to be changed/what can be improved to favour language acquisition

  4. 4.

    Assessments of participants’ language development

    • How does the course affect the participants?/observations (identity, self-confidence)

    • Sustainability of language skills

1.3 Appendix 3

Guiding questions for problem-centred interviews with course participants (short version)

  1. 1.

    Sociodemographics and migration history

    • age, marital status, children, place of birth, education, profession before leaving country of origin

    • context and reason of immigrating to Germany, situation/ trigger of escape

    • immigration route and date

    • profession/ recipient of aid money in Germany

    • educational services in Germany/other language courses

    • Experiences with integration course

    • course type and assessment of assignment to course type

    • knowledge of other course types

    • starting date and expected ending date

    • reasons and motivation for participation

    • course of language lessons, use of means as implemental

    • which learning contents are easy/hard?

    • experiences of success/failure

    • experiences/aspirations in view of final test

  2. 2.

    Experiences with the teacher

    • sympathy with teacher

    • teacher-student relationship

    • what makes a good teacher?

  3. 3.

    Experiences with other students/group dynamic

    • how many students?

    • places of origin of other students

    • atmosphere in the classroom

    • conflicts in the classroom

  4. 4.

    Learning German within the integration course

    • motivation to acquire German

    • importance of speaking German in everyday life

    • plans/wishes for future in Germany

    • development since participation in integration courses

    • experiences and assessment of orientation course

    • social contacts with German speakers

    • where do you need/seek help?

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Tissot, A., Pietrantuono, G., Rother, N., Baier, A., Croisier, J. (2021). Factors Affecting Language Acquisition in the Institutionalized Setting of the German Integration Course. In: Levine, G.S., Mallows, D. (eds) Language Learning of Adult Migrants in Europe. Educational Linguistics, vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79237-4_6

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  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-79236-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-79237-4

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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