Frühstart - Deutsch und interkulturelle Erziehung im Kindergarten (German Language and Intercultural Education in the Kindergarten)

The pilot project "Frühstart" used an innovative approach to implement and optimise the support in early childhood of immigrant children from the age of three. The concept of the three-year pilot project integrated German language teaching, intercultural education and parents' work in the kindergarten.

The "Frühstart" pilot project has been conducted in a total of 12 kindergartens in the Hessian towns of Frankfurt, Gießen and Wetzlar. Nursery school teachers at the selected establishments received intensive further training as a basis for successful language teaching and intercultural education. In addition to this voluntary "parent companions", who were themselves bilingual and have been prepared for their tasks in a further training programme, took on a bridging function between the parents and the teachers.

The efms conducted an evaluation of the project. The evaluation had the following objectives: firstly to analyse the project measures and improve their quality; secondly to carry out a methodological assessment of whether the measures conducted have really helped to achieve the objectives they strive towards; and thirdly to provide support to the project management in compiling a project handbook in which the results of the project and the experiences made during the project are made available to other users.

The evaluation concentrated on the following areas:

• German language teaching
• Intercultural education
• Work with parents
• Community-oriented work

Commissioned by: Türkisch-Deutsche Gesundheitsstiftung, Hertie-Stiftung und Herbert-Quandt-Stiftung
Completion: December 2006
Researcher: Richard Wolf