Everybody is able to learn a language up to a certain point, but to become really well spoken you need quality input. Scarlett has been able to learn a lot from me and the grandparents, but an obvious place for children to get quality language input is school. So we were keen to see in how far going to the German School one and a half years ago has had an influence on S.’s German. 

The influence was without doubt very positive. S, is much more exposed to German and listens to a variety of German speakers who all give qualified and specific input. She is also forced to express herself more carefully when she speaks in class. She reads a lot in her text books and she is now also reading a lot of German novels for pleasure.

All this gave a big push to S.’s German, but I believe that having to write in German was of particular importance. I am convinced that writing is the key to speaking a language really well. It forces you to structure your thoughts better and to use the grammar and rhetorical means which are necessary to do so. It challenges you to look for better words and to vary your language.

S.’s language has improved a lot and her writing has become much more elegant. This is also reflected in her marks in German where she improved from a 3, which is an average mark, to a 1, which is the top mark. S. has improved stylistically and she reduced grammatical mistakes a lot. One and a half years ago she often got the grammatical cases wrong, now she doesn’t do this any more. Also in spelling she has improved greatly, even though she still makes some mistakes, like getting the double consonants wrong as in ‘erinern’ or ‘zustimen’ or the capitalization of words, which is admittedly very difficult in German.

Also in English S. has improved her writing a lot, grammar has become very good, but her spelling is still a little wobbly. She generally writes well but then puts in a stupid mistake like writing “inventet” with a ‘t’. There are also a lot of words she knows orally but does not know how to write them. Also in English her mark improved from 3 to 2.

Talking of marks it is strange that Italian is S.’s worst subject. She got stuck at mark 3, even though she has gone through the Italian school system and should have an advantage compared to her class mates.