The importance of language development for the success in school for children from immigrant families

Almost 46% of the foreign pupils leaving vocational training colleges do not take their final exams. This alarming trend, which can be observed nationwide, raises the question as to which conditions are crucial for the school career of children and teenagers of immigrant families and which conditions affect their success at school. Attitudes have been influenced by the assumption that by extending the length of stay of the immigrant families the problems of integration would diminish; consequently it could be assumed that unhindered access to the institutions of education would automatically promise success. This expectation is mainly responsible for the fact that teaching has not been aligned with the specific needs of these children. Extracurricular support, e.g. like helping with the homework, was seen as a completion of and support for a school system which was considered apt for teaching children from other ethnic backgrounds and was not questioned except for special model projects. Precisely these model projects demonstrated that all children, both foreign and German, profit from a way of teaching which has been adjusted to the intercultural conditions of a class rather than denying them. Health care services for youngsters can essentially support the process of internal school reforms as doctors point out the excessive demands on the immigrated families by traditional teaching, which actually impairs the efficiency of performing well at school. Furthermore, health care can also explain that the proper development of a child can be impaired if its specific learning structures - based on the linguistic and cultural background are ignored by the school.