Second language acquisition in immigrant groups in Germany

Abstract

After the fall of the Nazi regime, Germany’s immigration policy drastically changed. The need for guest workers (Gastarbeiter) was high in order to rebuild German infrastructure, with a majority of the guest workers coming from Turkey. Prior to and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ethnic German Russians (Aussiedler) repatriated back to Germany, representing a second major wave of immigrants in the postwar era. The contemporary international crisis in Syria has led to an influx of refugees and Arabic speaking populations in Germany. As a result of these historical shifts in the latter half of twentieth century Germany to the present, Germany has taken language acquisition more seriously and consequently sees itself as an immigration nation. This is an overview of scholarship informing the context for second language acquisition among immigrants in Germany. This study explores language acquisition among these groups and finds that Turkish people do the best at learning German.