The class teacher reads out: “Pazara gidelim bir tavuk alalim.” Then she asks the group: Does anyone understand? Ali Emre answers. He speaks Turkish and can translate: “We want to go to the market and buy a chicken.” “Very good,” says Ms. Glitsch. Ali Emre proudly looks around. The students of class 2c of the Pestalozzi School in the east of Frankfurt sit in a circle on their small chairs. Each of the 17 children has parents at home who speak another language, from Turkish to Arabic to Afghan and Albanian. There are a total of eleven different languages. But there is only one language used in daily lessons, and that is German.

In the social discussions on the subject of integration, everyone agrees that it is important for the children of migrants to learn German.

But hardly anyone speaks about their native languages.

They are faded out as if they didn't exist, as if they were nothing more than an obstacle to the children's educational success, nothing to be proud of.

But you can also see the topic differently, and that's exactly why there are two bright blue suitcases, the "Frankfurter Bucherkoffer", in the classroom of 2c this morning.

Appreciate the migration background

Each contains twelve selected children's books that contain at least one other language in addition to German, for example Arabic, English, Farsi, French, Russian, Turkish or Serbo-Croatian.

A book with children's verses is even written in 50 languages.

The pupils can keep the suitcase for a whole school year, and each child takes it home twice for a week to look at the books alone or with their parents or to read the texts of the enclosed "reading owl" if the parents do not Have time.

“It is a simple project that also values ​​the children's migration background,” says Susanne Rosenfeld, who explains the concept to the 2c children that morning.

Together with Claudia Landmann, she founded the association Künstreich and so far brought the book case to 21 schools in Frankfurt, supported by the city.

The idea comes from Hamburg, where the coach @ school association was the first to initiate multilingual reading promotion with the book case.

The program has also existed in North Rhine-Westphalia this year, and other federal states are in preparation.

Multilingualism can be enriching

Appreciation is an important concept in the project.

If a part of children's linguistic abilities is repeatedly rejected and underestimated, this also means rejection and rejection of their person for the children.

While bilingualism is usually classified as enriching in families in which English is spoken in addition to German, it is often seen as a kind of deficit in other languages ​​such as Turkish, Arabic or Croatian.

“But we want to strengthen the potential of families,” says Landmann.

“We don't want to teach either,” adds Rosenfeld.

The books are only to be understood as suggestions and not as a school assignment.

“The more children experience in their families that reading and writing are important, the easier it is for them to learn languages ​​at school,” says Ingrid Gogolin, Professor of Education at the University of Hamburg, who researches multilingualism.

Overall, the promotion of bilingualism could have a positive effect on the school performance of the children.

In addition to the spoken language, the use of writing is also important.

“Every child has to understand the difference between spoken and written language at some point.

Children learn that at school, but parents can prepare for it, ”says Gogolin.