Bord members:

Henning Wode	Annette Lommel	Barbara Ratschow	Roland Wenzelburger

About us:
The “Association for early multilingualism in day nurseries and schools”, reg. soc (FMKS), was founded in 2000 in Kiel, Germany, emanating from a parental organisation at a local elementary school.

Today the FMKS´ members come from all parts of Germany and some as well from other countries: Hungary, Austria, Turkey, Chile, Brazil...

The FMKS represents a mix of theory and practice: members are parents, teachers, linguists, neuroscientists, nursery nurses and other employees in kindergardens, regional politicians, journalists, kindergardens and private schools.

In 2005 the FMKS was awarded the “Best initiative for promotion of early childhood  language capacity and of foreign language learning”.

Would you like to e-mail us? You can download the application form (88 kb PDF) “membership” or file an application for membership online .

What we do:

• Inform, give advice concerning early multilingualism, support projects, concentrate competence
• Be network and organ for the creation of contacts between all persons interested in the matter
• Get persons involved (parents, scientists, teachers, educators, and administrators) round the table

Who we are:

• parents, qualified educational personnel from day nurseries or schools, linguists, neurologists, people working in the media, representatives of economy

What we want:

• That each child may learn a foreign language early and in a suitable way for it. This can be done with great pleasure and without overtaxing the child. It starts in day nurseries.
• that foreign languages are used in day nurseries, kindergardens, and schools
• that different lessons are offered bilingually from class 1 on
• that language acquisition goes on from kindergartens and primary schools to further schools practising bilingual teaching
• that the training/ education of qualified personnel of kindergardens and schools contains foreign languages in an up-to-date way
• that immediate steps will be taken for the beginning of early multilingualism wherever parents plead for it
• that kindergartens are regarded as a part of our educational system and that they ought to belong to the Ministry of Education
• that teachers’ education enables teachers for foreign language teaching
• that job centres and the academic advisory services give advice to those who want to be informed about bilingual teaching
• that the federal states develop plans encouraging the integration of bilingual kindergartens and bilingual primary schools systematically. Up to now only in the “Saarland” (Germany) a plan for bilingual kindergartens exists

So why...?

• Because solid knowledge of languages become more and more important
• Because according to EU three languages should be spoken on a functionally appropriate level
• Because the preschool and elementary school period is an extremely favourable age for learning languages
• Because the early beginning does not mean overtaxing
• Because bilingually taught children do even better at their own mother tongue as well as at other subjects than those without early foreign language support
• Because the early learning of languages has positive effects on the intellectual development of children
• Because children learn with a lot of fun but free of stress
  

Board members
Dr. Annette Lommel
Dr. Roland Wenzelburger
Prof. Dr. Henning Wode
Barbara Ratschow
Christian Keitel

“…we don’t look for guilty persons but for new ways. We need an atmosphere for open dialogues and change…”