Erziehung zur Mehrsprachigkeit am Beispiel der Erfahrungen von Germanistik-Studierenden ukrainischer Herkunft

Abstract

The article discusses the multilingualism of students with Ukrainian background who study German philology in Poland. It presents results of a pilot study on students’ experiences with multilingual education. The respondents’ statements, collected in in-depth interviews, reveal subjective perceptions of their own language biographies. Their education towards multilingualism began with an early Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism since they were raised in a bilingual environment in Ukraine. Moreover, the development of multilingual competence was largely influenced by their family environment. It can be concluded that early experiences with bilingualism, openness to languages in the family and parental support in learning other foreign languages can positively influence education towards multilingualism.

Keywords

• multilingualism
• Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism
• bilingual education
• foreign language study