“Mummy, he's speaking Italian!”

May 2013

Dear Reader,

Julian (3) was in Italy with his family and his siblings for the summer holidays. There they indulged daily in fresh bread rolls for breakfast. Back in Germany, the family stood on a Saturday morning in the bakery. Lukas (2), Julian's brother, was excitedly pestering his mother, but she was unable to understand what he wanted. His words were incomprehensible. What was he wanting to say? Lukas was getting exasperated, tugging on his mother's sleeve and irritatingly repeating the same sentence in the packed bakery: “Chono Lisa ei?” Lukas had become quite angry by this point. Their father also tried, but failed to understand a word. Things took a turn for the dramatic. Nobody understood Lukas. Was this another bout of the sweetie rage? Had a shelf full of Kinder Eggs been discovered? Then it hit his brother Julian: “Mummy, Lukas is speaking Italian!” Suddenly it dawned on them all: “Buon giorno Luisa, come stai?” (“Good morning Luisa, how are you?”). Lukas was deeply contented. Small children learn a language without sense or understanding – one might think. In any case, without following grammatical rules or correct pronunciation. They acquire a language, including their native one, through sound, gesture, mood and situation. A sound structure is perceived that at first repeats and then increasingly varies, one time sounding one way, the next time another. Then systematic attempts are made to align this in speech with what is perceived. In doing so, we get some original results: flutterby, lellow, burstday, disonaur, cattle bridge. And so children learn to speak a language long before they use it consciously – and that includes foreign ones.

The principles of language teaching found in Waldorf schools reflect the language development of children, from “felt” to “reflected” language. Before middle school, the common, cognitively-orientated models of language acquisition therefore remain in the background for educational reasons based in the anthroposophical understanding of the human being; the focus is, rather, on the solemn and playful use of language through methods such as recitation, singing, tongue twisters, movement games, drama and stories. The aim is that the children should happily and trustingly immerse themselves in the flow of the language, not perfection achieved through fear of making mistakes. Grammar and orthography run in parallel and are not practiced in a more deliberate way until class 5 or 6.

Children learn differently to adolescents and adults. Lukas did everything right. Only the “grown-ups” didn't understand Italian.

Mathias Maurer


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