Young learners’ development of Spanish and German reading and writing skills

Immersion in a German School in La Paz, Bolivia: Young learners’ development of Spanish and German reading and writing skills (since 2018)

Currently, an increasing number of German Schools in South America are catering for students with a Spanish background because fewer students with a German background are nowadays attending such schools. Many German Schools in South America have therefore decided to offer a bilingual immersion programme, where several subjects such as science or maths are taught in German. The focus of this study lies upon the German School in La Paz, Bolivia (i.e. the Colegio Alemán „Mariscal Braun“) and on the development of Spanish and German language skills of 1st to 3rd grade students, and will examine the effectiveness of the immersion programme for different groups of students depending on their language background (e.g. whose family language is either German or Spanish or both).