meRLe

The aim of this follow-up project is to foster primary students’ reading skills in German by using reciprocal teaching that takes students’ multilingualism into account. It seeks to gain new insights into how language-sensitive ‘reciprocal teaching’ can be used in the primary classroom and what effects this may have. In reciprocal teaching, the students acquire reading and learning strategies in small groups. First, the teacher explains the strategies and supports the students in using them. Pupils then continue to practice the learned strategies in small groups in which they take turns working on assigned tasks and providing assistance. In this project, pupils are permitted to use all their languages to help them with the learning/teaching strategies.

The study took place in primary schools in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and Hesse (HE). Teachers in NRW initially participated in the project (treatment group), during which time the teachers in HE continued with their regular class-room instruction. Once the teachers in NRW had completed the project, the teachers in HE began with the teaching unit (waiting control group).

During the project, all teachers participated in professional development on reciprocal teaching and multilingual-sensitive instruction. The two methods were embedded in a teaching unit (12 lessons of 45 minutes each) with self-developed texts in which the character Merle travels around the world on adventures that are described in the teaching unit. Following professional development, the teachers implemented the unit in their 4th-grade German lessons.

Before and after the intervention, the students completed accompanying questionnaires with ques- tions on reading motivation, self-efficacy and in- structional quality, as well as tests on reading skills. During the intervention, one lesson in each class was videotaped or observed.

Overall the teachers evaluated the teaching unit positively and easy to implement in class. However, despite various stimuli to activate multilingualism in class, the teaching unit was perceived to be more useful for promoting social learning and reading skills. Nonetheless, the results of the pupil questionnaires indicate little apprehension around multilingual interaction in the classroom. On the contrary, the teaching unit was associated with a positive classroom climate and good class-room management. This perception applied to both participants who spoke only German and those who also used other languages during the lessons.

The materials developed as part of this project represent a methodological-didactic concept developed in accordance with evidence-based methods. It contains a fully elaborated series of lessons with comprehensive material to encourage multilingualism and can be easily implemented in primary school instruction. This (thus far) unique combination of reading and learning strategies — which are significant for academic success — with multilingual-sensitive elements is a viable means of fostering all students’ learning in the diverse primary school classroom.

Materials are in German only.