Standardsprache im Kindergarten: eine neue sprachdidaktische Herausforderung

Preparing kindergarden teachers for the classroom use of Standard High-German is a new challenge to teacher training in the German speaking part of Swizerland. The pre-school use of spoken High-German is due to the presence of a host of pupils who do not speak German when starting kindergarden at the age of four or five. Teachers using Standard High-German in their classrooms take to the norms and models of written - or rather - literary language. Kindergarden teachers in a long term school-project in the city of Basle - after all used to speaking Swiss German dialect in class - do not entirely succeed in living up to their own linguistic expectations as teachers of Standard High-German as a second language - neither in terms of correctness nor in following up their own maxims of linguistic modelling and routine. Some maxims have to be revised or modified: A clear distinction between different qualities of spoken Standard High-German is necessary. For beginners an adjusted and elaborate input is appropriate whereas advanced learners of German as a Second Language will benefit from a naturalistic and spontaneous classroom communication in the target language.