In 2001, the ministry of education of the federal state Saarland decided to reduce the duration of compulsory schooling until passing the Abitur at the Gymnasium by one year. For the duration of compulsory schooling has been limited to eight years, there will be students of two grades (G8 and G9) at the same time that will graduate in North-Rhine Westphalia in 2013. Consequently, the G8 students have one year less to establish the same level of knowledge as the G9 students. The author examines in how far the new G8 system has been implemented successfully. This thesis is developed on a case study that is based on a comparison between G8 and G9 students in the English language classroom. The author examines in how far the G8 students manage to catch up with the G9 students in terms of language accuracy. Further, the author discusses the effects of the reduction on English lessons in general.

Text sample: Chapter 2.2.2, A comparison of the G8 and G9 core curricula: The new form of core curricula (the so-called Kernlehrpläne) was introduced in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2004 and serves as a guideline for schools and teachers. Those core curricula are based on competences which students should reach according to the national educational standards, on which the conference of ministers for the arts and culture has agreed on. The core curriculum gives an overview of the expected competences by the end of the intermediate secondary level in general, but also regulates the expectations of which competences should be reached by the end of each grade (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, n.d.c). In this manner, this chapter will show a comparison of the G9 and the G8 core curricula for teaching English as a foreign language in order to point out how the reduction of the duration of compulsory schooling was integrated into the concept of teaching English at the Gymnasium. Therefore, this chapter is based on the official core curricula for G8 and G9, published by the Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (n.d.c). Whereas the expectations of students’ competences by the end of grade 6, grade 8, and grade 10 are described in the G9 core curriculum, in the G8 core curriculum those expectations are pointed out for the end of grade 6, grade 8 and grade 9, due to the fact that grade 10 already belongs to the upper secondary level. With regard to the expectations for the competences which should be reached by the end of grade 6, no differences can be observed, except for two insignificant ones. Strikingly at this point is that both curricula provide for the fact that English teachers should make use of the already available foreign language knowledge of students. However, since 2003, students have been taking English lessons compulsory from grade 3 onwards at primary school, and since 2009 even from grade 1 onwards (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2010). Consequently, G9 students usually did not have any exposure to the English language at primary school before entering the Gymnasium, whereas G8 students have at least two years, soon already even four years. This was obviously totally neglected by the adjustment of the core curricula since the expectations for the competences which should be reached by the end of grade 6 were not changed. On the one hand this disregard can be justified by that teaching foreign languages to primary school students should primarily serve the motivational aspect of a language on the other hand, however, with regard to the fact that a complete year of learning the language at the Gymnasium was reduced according to the G8 system, a further adaptation to the fact that students start studying the language now 4 years earlier should be considered. In both, the G8 and the G9, core curricula the level A2 with parts of the level B1 of the Common European Framework (the Europe-wide guideline for recognizing language qualities) is described as the goal of what students should reach by the end of grade 8. There are small dissimilarities with regard to the content concerning what should be acquired by the end of grade 8: For instance, according to the G9 core curriculum, the school system of the USA or Australia should be exemplary investigated. The G8 core curriculum in contrast leaves more space in that it should be the school system of either the USA or any other English-speaking country. In this way, teachers and students have more opportunities to make their own choice on which English-speaking country they want to deal with. In general, however, a comparison of the expected competences by the end of grade 8 shows mainly accordance. Especially important to mention, since linguistic accuracy is the main focus of the case study underlying this thesis, is that the expected linguistic competences are exactly the same for both core curricula. As far as the next level, the competences expected by the end of grade 9 (G8) and grade 10 (G9), are concerned, major differences can be observed. Grade 9 students of the G8 system are supposed to reach the level B1 according to the CEF, while grade 10 students of the G9 system are supposed to reach parts of the level B2 (especially with regard to receptive competences) in addition. Consequently, those different levels of G8 and G9 students have to be adapted during the prep phase of the upper secondary level, since in 2013 the first G8 and the last G9 students will have to pass the same Abitur exams. Nevertheless, a comparison of the core curricula concerning writing competences, which should be acquired by the end of the intermediate secondary level, does not show any significant differences. Hence, the logical consequence would be that G8 and G9 students are actually on the same level concerning linguistic accuracy in written English. Since this, however, was often doubted by many critics of the new G8 system, the following Chapter 3 should provide a first impression of empirical research in this field.

• linguistics

• G8

• G9

• teaching

• school