Do you see that woman in the window?

Do you see that tree over there in the yard?

Do you see the people there in the park?

You are not alone – no one is alone.” Eda Korkmaz stands at the front of the classroom and sings.

As if it fits the theme of the song, she does not sing alone for long.

Timidly and quietly, sometimes a little bashfully, twelve teenagers gradually join in.

The lyrics of the stanzas falter at times, and most people sing "dorrrt" with a rolled "r" and "nish" with "sch".

At least the refrain works smoothly after a few attempts.

Nadine Bos

Editor in business, responsible for "Career and Opportunity".

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"We sing a lot in class," says Korkmaz, 36 years old, who studied mathematics and history with an additional qualification in "German as a second language".

Although she says she has "a terrible voice", the music helps her with what is currently most important to her: teaching German to her class.

Here, at the Paul Hindemith Comprehensive School in Frankfurt am Main, she has been in charge of class 7i for nine years.

The “i” stands for “intensive”, because your students don’t just need intensive language support.

They are all new to Germany, many have fled war, violence and a lack of prospects, each and every one of them is carrying their own package.

Twelve children from seven different countries, from Eritrea, Bosnia, Romania, Moldova, Russia, Morocco and Syria, are in class 7i this Thursday in July.

Although it's almost the holidays, a new student will join the next day - from Ukraine.

Eda Korkmaz conducted the interview with him the day before.

It is normal for her that her class changes throughout the school year.

In the near future there will probably be a particularly large number of new ones;

Politicians have decided that because of the war in Ukraine, intensive classes in Hesse will have to accommodate 19 instead of the previous maximum of 16 children.

Eda Korkmaz thinks that's wrong.

"The lessons are very individualized," she explains.

Some students could hardly read and write, some only knew Arabic or Cyrillic letters,

still others have excellent educational backgrounds and would prefer to do the entire course in English, even though they are supposed to be learning German.

19 children - that's just too many to teach everyone at their own level.

More than just teachers

Anyone who sees Eda Korkmaz in class can observe quite well how the individualization works: For her worksheets – a text with gaps – she has prepared several different stacks.

She gives each child a sheet from a different pile, depending on their ability.

On some there are texts with many gaps, on others only a few words are missing.

In some you only need to use simple nouns, for others you need to be able to conjugate verbs.

Students who have finished their worksheet quickly grab colorful vocabulary cards and start memorizing German words at their own pace.

From time to time Korkmaz takes a child aside and asks about the vocabulary.

When everyone has finished the task, the teacher picks up the thread again and continues teaching the group together.

Not only are the levels of education different, the times at which the children join the class also vary.

"The students come whenever their parents decide that they need to leave the country, or rather, when they can organize one," says Korkmaz' colleague Barbara Newels.

Newels leads Class 5i, which is attended by the younger refugee children, aged between 10 and 12.

She is Korkmaz' closest colleague.

Together with the 9i teacher, who accepts older young people over 14, they form a team of three that constantly exchange ideas.

"We're the smallest department in the school and we stick together," says Newels.