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With the growing popularity of early foreign language learning (EFLL) programmes in elementary schools, the transition to secondary school constitutes a crucial bridge. Ensuring a smooth transition that builds on students' L2 language proficiency and gradually shifts pedagogical approaches is key for long-term success. The present study examines students' perceptions of the transition (N = 763) two months after they switched to secondary school in Germany. Analyses included descriptive statistics and logistic regression, which controlled for the impact of individual learner characteristics. Students' receptive language proficiency was assessed to investigate its relationship with students' perceptions at this early stage of the transition. Results showed that few students perceived the transition as a disruption from their prior experience, while 43% identify both similarities and changes. Looking forward to English in secondary school and higher cognitive functions decreased the odds of perceiving the transition as a disruption. Students with lower receptive language proficiency were more likely to perceive the transition as a disruption. Pedagogical implications include policymakers providing better guidance on expectations. Initial language assessments at the beginning of the transition, paired with questionnaires gauging students' expectations, fears and prior experience, may support teachers in better addressing their students' language needs.

Background: In Germany, more than 40% of infants are born to immigrant parents. Increased survival rates of very preterm (below 32 weeks gestation at birth; VP) infants have not resulted in equally improved life chances and quality of life. More information on perinatal variations in outcomes according to social inequalities, migration background, and language barriers is needed. We tested whether mothers' immigrant status and language barriers are associated with perinatal health and short-term neonatal outcomes. Methods: The data are from the national multi-centre German Neonatal Network (GNN) cohort, including VP births from 2009 onwards. In total, 3606 (n = 1738 female) children were assessed, and 919 (n = 449 female) of these children had immigrant backgrounds. Immigrant status was operationalised as a binary variable based on the children's mothers' countries of birth (born in Germany vs. foreign-born). Self-reported home language (L1) was used to calculate the average linguistic distance to German as one continuous variable. Results: Mixed-effects models showed that two out of fourteen effects of interest survived the adjustment for known confounders and accounting for the nestedness of data within birth hospitals. Linguistic distance from mothers' L1s to German was independently associated with diagnoses of preeclampsia (OR = 1.01, 95% CI = [1.00, 1.01]). Infants of foreign-born mothers had higher odds for amniotic infection syndrome (AIS; OR = 1.45 [1.13, 1.86]) than infants of German mothers. Conclusions: Our findings from this large multi-centre longitudinal cohort of VP-born children indicate that maternal immigrant status and language barriers have limited impact on perinatal health and severe neonatal outcomes. This suggests that, regardless of background or language skills, there may be few inequalities in the perinatal health of pregnant women and their newborn preterm infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid implementation of early foreign language programmes in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, first for Grade 3 (ages 8–9 years) in 2003 and then from Grade 1 (ages 6–7 years) in 2008, primary school teachers had to adapt to teaching a foreign language in Grade 1 quickly. Teachers had little experience with language teaching to very young learners, and curricula and materials had not been tested prior to implementation. This study investigates the development of receptive English proficiency across three large cohorts (N = 7,289). The first cohort started in Grade 3 , the second cohort was the first to start in Grade 1, and the third cohort started in Grade 1, six years after the initial implementation. Propensity scores were used to compare sampling weights of cohorts without the influence of confounding variables. Results confirmed a slight advantage for an earlier start in primary school for students' receptive proficiency in Grade 5. The results further indicate that proficiency scores did not improve from the first cohort of students starting in Grade 1 to one six years later. Systemic changes in teacher education for language specialists in primary education may not yet have been able to affect student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign language education has now been implemented at the elementary school level across Europe, and early foreign language education has gained traction following language policies set by the European Commission. The long-term effects of an early start, however, have not received ample scientific scrutiny. The present study assessed early receptive skills of two cohorts of English language learners in Year 5 (beginning of secondary education in Germany) and two years later in Year 7. The factors distinguishing between these two cohorts were onset of foreign language education and the amount of language exposure. The effects of the earlier start were found in the results for Year 5, when the early cohort outperformed peers with less and later exposure to English. However, in Year 7, the late starters surpassed their early starting peers.

With the growing popularity of early foreign language learning (EFLL) programmes in elementary schools, the transition to secondary school constitutes a crucial bridge. Ensuring a smooth transition that builds on students' L2 language proficiency and gradually shifts pedagogical approaches is key for long-term success. The present study examines students' perceptions of the transition (N = 763) two months after they switched to secondary school in Germany. Analyses included descriptive statistics and logistic regression, which controlled for the impact of individual learner characteristics. Students' receptive language proficiency was assessed to investigate its relationship with students' perceptions at this early stage of the transition. Results showed that few students perceived the transition as a disruption from their prior experience, while 43% identify both similarities and changes. Looking forward to English in secondary school and higher cognitive functions decreased the odds of perceiving the transition as a disruption. Students with lower receptive language proficiency were more likely to perceive the transition as a disruption. Pedagogical implications include policymakers providing better guidance on expectations. Initial language assessments at the beginning of the transition, paired with questionnaires gauging students' expectations, fears and prior experience, may support teachers in better addressing their students' language needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]