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Introduction:
In Germany, education matters lie within the scope of each of the 16 German federal states. Consequently, there is no unique educational system which is valid for the entire Federal Republic of Germany, but 16 individual ones. However, a German-wide basic framework, including regulations about the compulsory school attendance for instance, does exist.
The duration of compulsory schooling until passing the Abitur at the Gymnasium, however, is not regulated by this framework, but belongs to the power of decision of each federal state. For instance, in Thuringia and Saxony, the duration of compulsory schooling at the Gymnasium has been limited to eight years, as it was already the case before the reunification of Germany in 1990. In the other federal states, like North-Rhine Westphalia for example, the duration of compulsory schooling at the Gymnasium included an additional ninth year, resulting in the fact that the students attended the Gymnasium from grade 5 until grade 13. Nevertheless, in 2001, the ministry of education of the federal state Saarland decided for a reduction of the duration of compulsory schooling at the Gymnasium by one year. By now, all the other federal states have followed and therefore also made the decision for a reduced duration of only eight years at the Gymnasium.
After many heated discussions, also the North-Rhine Westphalian ministry of education decided for a reduction of the duration of compulsory schooling at the Gymnasium. As a consequence of this decision, students of two grades (G8 and G9 students) entered the upper secondary level at all North-Rhine Westphalian Gymnasien on August 31st, 2010 (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, n.d.a). The students of this so-called Doppeljahrgang will all graduate in 2013 and therefore all of them will have to pass the same Abitur exams. Hence, it must be guaranteed that G8 students have the same preconditions as G9 students, despite having one year less of general schooling before graduating.
Since no students have entered the upper secondary level after only five years at the Gymnasium in North-Rhine Westphalia before 2010, empirical research in this area is hardly available by now. Nevertheless, this Doppeljahrgang offers the unique chance of directly comparing G8 and G9 students in order to find out in how far the new G8 system was implemented successfully or not.
Especially in the context of learning foreign languages it might be doubted that one year less of learning the foreign language can be easily compensated. Whereas the teaching of new grammatical aspects used to be completed mainly by the end of the intermediate secondary level also according to the old G9 system, other aspects, such as vocabulary, only develop over time. Therefore, it is of interest to find out in how far the new G8 system was successfully implemented into the concept of teaching English as a foreign language at the Gymnasium.
On the basis of the lack of empirical research, a case study concerning the English foreign language classroom was conducted, which is the core of this thesis. For practicability and comparability reasons, this case study was mainly focused on linguistic accuracy. Thus, the aim was to find out in how far the current grade 10 G8 students managed to catch up with the current grade 11 G9 students with regard to linguistic accuracy in the English language. The underlying assumption is that, since vocabulary for instance develops over time, G8 students are not as linguistically accurate as G9 students by the end of the prep phase of the upper secondary level.
In order to provide the reader first of all with the necessary theoretical background knowledge, an overview of what linguistic accuracy actually refers to and how it can be measured is shown in Chapter 2. Furthermore, the main information on when, how and why the reduction of the duration of compulsory schooling at the Gymnasium was conducted in North-Rhine Westphalia and how it affected the English lessons will be presented. In Chapter 3, the aim and methodology of the preliminary study will be explained before the presentation of the main outcomes. Moreover, tentative explanations for those results will be discussed. Chapter 4 will then present an outlook in which advantages and disadvantages of the present case study will be discussed. Finally, in Chapter 5, the main results of the present case study will be summarised with the intention to evaluate in how far further research in this field is recommendable.
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