Arabic in German secondary schools : curriculum development between linguistics, aesthetics, and education

Abstract

The teaching of Arabic is a relatively recent phenomenon in German secondary schools and the language usually does not enjoy the status of a regular subject with fully trained teachers and official curricula. Most of the classes are conceived as heritage language courses outside school hours and on a voluntary basis. Only two of the sixteen German federal states have started to implement Arabic as a regular second language option, namely Hamburg and Hesse. For this purpose, official curricula are being designed which are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (henceforth CEFR) and federal foreign language education standards. While research suggests that teaching Arabic in accordance with the CEFR and other national and international language education guidelines requires the integration of colloquial varieties, further consequences are rarely discussed. Yet, these are important: K-12 curricula conceptualise language and communication in a much broader way than linguistic and sociolinguistic studies of Arabic usually do, amongst others, by adding the L2 learner’s cultural and aesthetic experience and defining the educational value of the target language. By focussing on the curricular examples of Hamburg and Hesse, this article shows that educational debates about Arabic do not only draw from the linguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge about the nature of the language but equally have the potential to widen and enhance our understanding of it.