Children and adolescents in the migration destination countries (as well as in many places elsewhere) grow up in culturally and linguistically very heterogenous contexts. This diversity is most of all reflected in the context of daily life at school, where there are scarcely any classes left without multiple languages and cultures being represented and where the proportion of children with a migration background does not reach or exceed 30, 40, or 50 percent of the student population. The heritage language education classes (HLT) remain the one exception within the institutional context of the school. Although there are dialectal and, partially, national differences (e. g. Arabic speakers from different Arab countries), we can nevertheless speak of an Arabic, Turkish, or Albanian HLT.
A central task of the school is to prepare the children and adolescents for life in society. In our case, this means preparing the students for life in a multicultural and multilingual society. This challenge pertains to regular curriculum classes as well as to HLT, whereby mainstream education classes -in accordance with the curriculum – tend to mediate content and themes related to the host country, whereas HLT more likely emphasizes a) those which are related to the country of origin, its culture and language, and b) themes related to life in the immigration countries. In order to carry out their educational functions, however, both must actively contribute to developing a series of competences which are indispenable for a successful life in multicultural, multilingual societies. These include, for instance, conflict ability and tolerance, interest and acceptance (instead of rejection) relative to other cultures and a way of life, as well as the willingnes to reconsider one’s own values, norms and role expectations.
For children and youths from immigrant families, there is another important aspect of intercultural competence: the orientation in and between the culture of the country of origin and the one of of the host country. Significant conflicts that harm development may result from the tension field between the cultures and their partially inconsistent norms and social values. The HLT instructors can make more valuable contributions in this regard, as they are often better acquainted with both cultural contexts than the regular curriculum teachers. The teaching suggestions comprised in this volume demonstrate in six thematically different topic areas what these HLT contributions might look like (see below). If their implementation, adaptation and extension leads to more exciting and stimulating lessons, the objectives of this publication have been met.