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LEARNING DANISH

Denmark announces review of country’s Danish language schools

The Danish Ministry of Immigration and Integration has announced a ‘cross-ministerial working group’ will review how Danish language lessons are provided to foreigners who move to the country.

Published: 15 January 2024 13:20 CET
Denmark announces review of country’s Danish language schools
A 2017 photo showing a Danish language class in Kalundborg. The government is to review state language lessons to ensure they better meet the needs of users. Photo: Niels Ahlmann Olesen/Ritzau Scanpix

A review of Denmark’s existing Danish language school provisions is to be undertaken in an effort to better meet the varying needs of people who take the classes, the Danish Ministry of Immigration and Integration has announced via a statement.

“Many adults today take part in Danish lessons, but the lessons must be better at catering for different target groups with different needs,” the ministry said.

A “cross ministerial working group” will therefore be tasked with looking at ways in which to improve the way lessons are organised, it said in the statement.

All foreigners who legally reside in Denmark, are aged 18 or over and have a CPR (personal registration) number, are eligible for free Danish courses offered by their local municipality.

Depending on the education level and English language skills of the individual, language schools place attendees in one of the three courses available, which are Danish Education 1, Danish Education 2 or Danish Education 3.

Each course consists of six modules. At the end of each course, an exam can be taken which provides a qualification equivalent to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which for Danish Education 1 is B1; Danish Education 2 is B1+ and for Danish Education 3 it is C1.

The Danish Language Programme lessons are usually held at various times of the day and evening, twice a week for one to three hours, with homework in between. The lessons can be a mix of in class and online.

The programme is free but a deposit of 2,000 kroner must be paid before starting the classes unless the attendee is enrolled in an integration programme or an au pair.

READ ALSO: What are the alternatives to the free Danish language classes?

The decision to review the existing structure of Danish lessons is part of a 2023 tripartite agreement with trade unions and employer organisations pledging investment in adult education, according to the immigration ministry.

It will aim to provide Danish lessons that better cater for the varying needs of people taking the classes.

“For example, some of the linguistically weakest students of foreign heritage could benefit from more practice-oriented Danish lessons than they receive today,” it said.

“Meanwhile, students with Danish heritage who attend reading and writing lessons, because they find reading and writing difficult, get classes which are less appropriate for them because they are aimed at people who do not speak Danish as their mother tongue,” it said.

The reform commission has also recommended a review of the “organisation and quality” of Danish lessons for adults.

“For a refugee, getting the right Danish language lessons can be decisive for whether the person in question enters work or education and becomes self-supporting,” Immigration and Integration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek said in the statement.

“For foreign employees, being able to talk to the other parents at kindergarten or school can help create a social network in Denmark, which makes them want to stay and continue to contribute to our society,” he continued.

“It is therefore good that Danish courses are being reviewed so that we ensure we are offering the right thing,” he said.

In addition to the immigration ministry, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance will be involved in the review.

The group will submit a report to the government by summer 2025.

Member comments

  1. I wish they would talked to those people who dropped out of the ‘official’ language education and asked them why. I am an academic and the game pretending there is no grammar irritated me a lot, as well as treating us as children, or people unable to read. In our group we were highly educated, knowing three or four other languages and most dropped out exactly for the reasons I mentioned. Plus it was such a time investment, without any visible benefits.

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SCHOOLS

‘A superpower’: How being bilingual can help kids thrive in Danish schools

Being bilingual can help children to prosper academically when they are encouraged at school and at home, an expert told The Local.

Published: 14 June 2024 16:13 CEST
'A superpower': How being bilingual can help kids thrive in Danish schools

A recent report in Denmark linked a lack of Danish spoken at home and lower economic status with poorer performance at school, but bilingualism in isolation is an advantage under the right conditions, a specialist in the area told The Local on Friday.

Around 40 percent of school students with immigrant backgrounds were considered to be underperforming in mathematics, reading and science. That compares to 16 percent of students with non-immigrant backgrounds, according to the report “PISA Etnisk 2022”, published this week by research and analysis institute VIVE (National Research and Analysis Center for Welfare).

For all students, regardless of heritage, socioeconomic status was a factor in school performance. In other words, students from strong socioeconomic positions achieve better PISA results on average than those from weaker socioeconomic positions.

The report states that the language spoken at home may also have an effect on school results, with students who speak some Danish at home more likely to achieve better results – although this effect is reduced when socioeconomic status is taken into account.

READ ALSO: Kids who don’t speak Danish at home ‘may find school harder’

However, the report may not identify the difference individual situations can make for parents, an expert in raising bilingual children told The Local.

Bilingual kids given the right encouragement and support at home and school are in fact likely to thrive, said Elisa Sievers, a cultural consultant and founder of Happy Children Denmark. 

Sievers, who noted she had not read the VIVE report specifically, has observed bilingual schools and studied evidence on teaching multilingual children, at the Institute for Minority Education at University College South Denmark. 

Larger studies don’t always look at “the kids’ class or socioeconomics, where they actually come from, how long they’ve been in Denmark or what kind of resources the family has,” she said, adding that a number of different factors, like the languages spoken and whether the parents speak Danish, can create different circumstances contributing to results.

Being bilingual “doesn’t take the academic level of a child down, quite the opposite,” Sievers said. “It’s really about creating a space where children feel seen and feel that all parts of their identity and their language skills are embraced, then the child’s full potential can get out and they can thrive and have better academic results.”

“If a child is not thriving then they won’t perform super well academically either.”

READ ALSO:

Difficulties can arise if bilingualism is framed negatively by educators, parents or others, such as “questioning whether [the child] speaks any language perfectly,” Sievers said.

“That will affect the way the child is behaving and the way the child wants to perform and experiment with learning languages in general.”

“If there’s a positive, embracing space where the child can develop and use their language skills in a positive way”, they will be able to thrive, she said.

To create an “embracing” environment for bilingual children, Sievers advocates parents “staying authentic”, meaning each parent being consistent about speaking in their own mother tongue.

“It’s important that while the children are small and learning to speak that parents stick to that, and then they can be more loose later when the child knows the two languages,” she said.

At school, teachers can “make a point of the child having a special skill” by encouraging use of the second language.

An example of this could be asking the child to explain something about their language or background to the rest of the class.

“Seeing the language background, talk about it as something positive and something that is a superpower for the child instead of being a problem,” she said.

Elisa Sievers has a monthly newsletter, with tips for teachers and parents of bilingual and trilingual children.

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