Sprachenregime und Erstsprachenunterricht B/K/M/S in Österreich

Ein Schritt in Richtung Mehrsprachigkeit oder Weiterführung des monolingualen Habitus?

Abstract

Austria is one of the few countries that offers first language instruction from elementary to secondary level II within the regular school system for learners whose first language is not German. Besides the usual challenge of learners entering first language classes with different language levels and dialects or sociolects, a particularly pressing didactic question arises in the instruction of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian (B/C/M/S). This question re-volves around how teachers handle the different countries of origin, the standard languages used there, and what is considered typical culture for each country, and it regularly becomes a political issue. Starting with autumn 2023, the measures that teachers have already implemented at their own discretion and depending on their individual initiative to differentiate and individual-ize instruction are now explicitly required in the newly effective curricula. In the school year 2024/25, Styria took a new approach for the first time by offering separate first language clas-ses for Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. It remains to be seen what impact this decision will have on first language teaching in general and on the social and linguistic fabric.