Adult migrants’ progress in a German as a foreign language and literacy course in Germany

Abstract

The present study investigates the language learning process of adult illiterate
migrants in Germany. The author has been teaching German as a foreign language
to adult learners in Baden Württemberg since October, 2015. The year 2015 saw the
great migration wave, when the German government launched countless numbers of
courses facilitating language learning and integration including better orientation in
the labour market and job finding. As a language instructor, the author of the present
study has acquired wide-ranging experiences of which those with a literacy course
for illiterate adults (=Alphabetisierungskurs) will be presented here. The official title
of the course was BEF Alpha – Bildungsjahr für Erwachsene Flüchtlinge zwischen
20 und 35 Jahren ohne oder mit geringen Sprach- und Schriftkenntnissen. Data
collection was carried out in three phases aiming at the investigation of the input, the
procedural and the output factors. The assessment of the input factors included the
results of a streaming test (Goethe Institut 2010) administered prior to launching the
course. The investigation of the procedural factors was carried out on six
grammatical structures, phoneme-grapheme correspondence, level of syllables, level
of words, level of sentences, dialogues consisting of a few replies and a form which
the participants were supposed to fill in with their own personal data. These
structure-related tests were repeated after each month of the course. Finally, the
investigation of the output factors was carried out using a TELC A1 language test
closing the course.