Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
Dietmar Larcher UDC 323.15(436=863) 
Institute for Distance 
Education at the University 
of Klagenfurt 
Austria 
IN DEFENCE OF THE INTEGRATION MODEL: PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS OF THE 
SCHOOL SYSTEM IN BILINGUAL CARINTHIA* 
It is next to impossible to describe all the complexities of the 
bilingual Carinthian school system briefly because it is not 
comparable with any other multilingual system that I know of. Its 
most important organisational feature is its integration of 
pupils of both ethnic groups. This has, of course, an educational 
objective: the integration of Slovene speaking pupils into the 
German speaking majority, and at the same time, the development 
of their Slovene identity. This sounds like eating your cake and 
having it, but it is an old compromise dating back to the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire and its national policy. In Carinthia this 
integrative educational objective is reached by mixing bilingual 
and monolingual pupils. 
Let me drop in a short comment on the Carinthian usage of the 
terms "Bilingual" and "Monolingual," as far as the Carinthian 
elementary school is concerned. "Bilingual" does not mean that a 
pupil is by definition fluent in German and Slovene; some 
bilingual pupils are, some are not. It simply means that the 
pupil is enrolled for both languages, German and Slovene, 
irrespective of his command of either of these two languages. 
Some do not speak a word in the second language when they begin 
their school career. "Monolingual," on the other hand, also does 
not mean that he is enrolled for German only and is not supposed 
to learn any Slovene. Some “monolinguals” are fluent in Slovene 
and German when they begin their school career. You see, things 
are not as easy as they seem at first glance. So remember, 
monolingual and bilingual do not refer to a person's quality, but 
to a mode of instruction. 
As mentioned above, monolingual and bilingual children (=children 
enrolled for monolingual or bilingual instruction) get mixed for 
purposes of instruction. In one and the same classroom there are 
side by side those who have enrolled for bilingual instruction 
and those who have enrolled for monolingual instruction (which is 
always instruction in German). One and the same teacher teaches 
both groups at the same time and in the same room. He is supposed 
to teach one group - the bilingual one - about fifty percent of 
instruction time in Slovene, and the other fifty percent of 
instruction time in German. However, at the same time he is 
supposed to teach the other group - the monolingual one - a 
hundred percent of instruction time in German. In order for him 
to handle this difficult task of having to teach a hundred and 
fifty percent while only being human he must resort to group 
education so as to make both ends meet. In fact, he should be an 
expert at such group education as he must keep one group busy 
doing some meaningful work on its own while he is explaining 
  
* Original: English 
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Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
something to the other group. While he is doing his fifty percent 
of Slovene speaking, the group of the only-German monolinguals 
must be engaged in worthwhile activities that help them improve 
their language competence on their own. On the other hand, when 
attending to the monolinguals, it is the bilinguals who have to 
manage on their own. 
What makes the teacher's situation even worse is the fact that 
among the bilinguals he usually has three proficiency levels: 
children who have never heard a word of Slovene; children who 
have a stammering knowledge of Slovene, because in their family 
Slovene is rarely used; and some children whose first language is 
Slovene. Also with the monolingual group there are different 
levels of proficiency. Some of these children speak Slovene at 
home, but their parents want them to receive a German-only 
education for one reason or another. In class, such children 
sometimes have problems with their German but understand more of 
what the teacher says in Slovene to the bilinguals than any of 
the pupils who have enrolled for Slovene while, on the other 
hand, their bilingual classmates may be a lot better at German. 
In one word, the situation is confusing not only for the reader, 
but also for the children. In my paper on the history and present 
situation of the Slovene ethnic group in Carinthia, I have tried 
to give some idea of why things have become so complicated. 
In spite of all this confusion and difficulty, Carinthian 
Slovenes insist on this system for a number of reasons. First of 
all, they can prove with the help of statistics that the results 
of this weird combination of bilingual and monolingual 
instruction are just as good as those of monolingual German 
instruction. Second, they claim that the majority of Carinthian 
Slovenes would not want to send their children to a school 
providing instruction in Slovene only because they want their 
children to be fluent in both languages, so that they can advance 
socially and economically in a country where power and business 
are conducted in German, but that they can at the same time keep 
in touch with their native culture and language. At the best of 
cases, they wish for their children to choose freely which of the 
two languages and cultures should be dominant in their later 
life. Third, they insist that by keeping this combination of 
bilingual and monolingual education going there is at least some 
chance for monolinguals in Southern Carinthia to pick up some 
Slovene even when they are not enrolled for it: there is quitea 
considerable number of Slovene speaking Carinthians who do not 
enroll their children for bilingual instruction because of a deep 
feeling of social stigma attached to their language; yet, on the 
other hand, they feel badly about altogether abandoning their 
native tongue; there are families where husband and wife do not 
agree on the language group for their child and compromise by 
sending him to the mixed school; there are still others who fear 
their neighbours might not approve of their child learning 
Slovene. For all these people the rather chaotic way of teaching 
monolinguals and bilinguals at the same time provides the only 
chance of allowing their children at least a glimpse into the 
language of their origin. 
So far, this system of combined bilingual and monolingual 
education has worked well enough for the children to survive in 
the economic and ethnic reality of Southern Carinthia. With 
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teachers who are highly motivated and have learned their job as 
group educators, it has even been a good system. A year ago, 
however, German nationalists started an initiative to replace 
this system by one that would separate monolingual and bilingual 
children. They should no longer be together in one room and 
should no longer be taught by the same teacher. Their main point 
of criticism with the bilingual/monolingual system was that 
monolingual children had only fifty percent of the teacher's 
attention whereas bilingual children would have one hundred 
percent of it. They said it was simple mathematics to figure out 
that a teacher who, according to the law, had to devote fifty 
percent of his time to the Slovene speaking children had only 
half of his time left for German; this, they said, was all right 
with the bilinguals, but not with the monolinguals, who were 
entitled to one hundred percent of a German speaking teacher. As 
a consequence, they imputed, German speaking children only got 
half of the teacher's attention while Slovene and German speaking 
children got all his attention. Consequently, their propaganda 
focused on this disproportionate allotment of teacher attention. 
They declared in public that the poor German children were 
underprivileged because they received only half of the education 
they were supposed to receive at school. They also claimed that 
the parents of monolingual children had no alternative to the 
existing system even if they did not want their children to 
passively take part in bilingual instruction. This was, according 
to them, sheer neglect of parents' rights. 
The Slovenes and a lot of German speaking Carinthians have 
criticised this German nationalist move towards the abolition of 
the existing co-education of both ethnic groups as an attempt to 
destroy common schooling of Slovene and German speaking pupils. 
They have blamed the nationalists for appealing to secret fears 
of parents and for manipulating public opinion with wrong 
information about the quality of ethnic co-education in the 
combined bilingual/monolingual schools. They have suspected that 
the real purpose behind all the propaganda was a German 
nationalist attempt to isolate and discriminate those who opted 
for bilingual education and to create an apartheid situation in 
Southern Carinthia. Instead of separating the two ethnic groups, 
they have suggested to improve the existing school system so that 
it would suit both the needs of the bilinguals and monolinguals; 
and so that it would help foster an integrated society where 
speakers of both languages would live together in a democratic 
way, appreciating each other's differences and learning from each 
other. 
Bilingual teachers, school authorities, sub-committees of the 
Socialist Party and university project groups have worked out 
solutions that have in common that they preserve the overall idea 
of ethnic co-education and of common instruction for both 
monolinguals and bilinguals. Each of the solutions worked out so 
far is based on a team-teaching system which provides two 
teachers for one class and one classroom. They differ in how and 
when and for what the second teacher should be employed. 
Meanwhile, the German nationalists have not been idle. They have 
repeated their demand for separate instruction over and over 
again, using the catchwords, “Equal chances for German 
children!", "German teachers for German children!" and “Respect 
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parents' rights!" They have attacked the team teaching solution 
and have announced that they would fight any other solution than 
one that was based on separation of monolingual and bilingual 
instruction. Some of them even claim publicly that bilingual 
education is detrimental for the mind and for identity. 
It seems that a lot of people lend them their ears. This is not 
because they are German nationalists. In fact, most of them are 
not but still believe in the propaganda slogans because they fear 
for their children to lose life chances when they stay on in 
bilingual schools. Most of the population, teachers included, 
have no idea what team teaching and modern group instruction is 
and can do; but they know very well that they want their children 
to succeed in life. It is much easier for them to understand the 
simple appeal of propaganda than the complex arguments of 
intercultural educationists. 
I do not know what will become of intercultural co-education and 
of bilingual schools in Southern Carinthia. But I do know that it 
is the duty of socially responsible researchers to support those 
with arguments who fight for its survival and improvement. 
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