If You Must Teach German Language Here

By Okey Ikechukwu

Three years ago, my niece wanted to travel to Germany for a skilled-based university course that is not available in Nigeria. To do so, she needed to study the German language and, thus, must learn the German language as a precondition. Several language schools were mentioned and I chuckled at the very idea of sending her to any of these schools to master, of all languages, German for the purpose of university education.

While we were at, someone actually suggested that, based on my smattering knowledge of the language from my university days, I should teach her. The absurdity of such a suggestion was not immediately obvious to the speaker, because he assumed that once you can speak a language to a certain degree, and can even write an essay or two in the language, you are not only good at it in every sense of the word, but that you could also teach it to another person. This is simply ridiculous.

I arranged for my niece to go to Goethe Institute where the language can be taught, and is being taught, the way it should be taught.

The corollary to the above is that most of the “language schools” proposed for my niece were peopled by owners and teachers whose mastery of the language did not go beyond basic social graces like greetings, elementary conjugation and some “Kleine Unterhalten”; and nothing more. Today, such schools are all over the place, swindling gullible people and are being operated by unscrupulous individuals who employ language graduates with only elementary knowledge to teach others.

The latter, in turn, inflict their ignorance on “victims”, who later discover that the certificates thus obtained neither gives them good knowledge of the language, nor makes them eligible for admission in Germany without first taking further courses in the language. 

Just think back a few years ago, when a sudden craze for the study of Chinese Language seized the land. Everyone who could say “ching chong” went about threatening to make whosoever they encountered a Ph.D. holder in the language. It was largely fueled by the desire of many people to travel out of the country, and particularly China at the time.

Today, the tremendous increase in the demand for learning foreign languages, especially German, Chinese, and Spanish, has created a new groundswell. At the same time, the absence of trained and qualified teachers in these languages has also been strengthening the mischief of various forms of so-called Language Schools all over the country.

Question: “What are the qualifications of the owners of these language schools and who authorized their operations? To understand to what extent most of these schools are just collecting people’s money and completely wasting their time in the name of teaching, say, a language like German, let us look at the standard proficiency levels in the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFRE)

The first level is A1, or the Beginner/Breakthrough class. This is followed by the A2, known as Elementary. It is after these two levels that you then proceed to the B1, or Intermediate level. Next comes the B2, which is Upper Intermediate, before you move on to levels C1 and C2, which are the ‘Advanced’ and ‘Proficient’, respectively

It is with the B1 and B2 qualification that you can apply for a visa for such things like short courses and etc. But only with C1 and C2, that is the with Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels, that anyone can apply for admission and study in a German University. See the difference?

Interestingly, and actually very distressingly, one overlooked point by those thronging the language schools is that anyone with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in German language from a Nigerian university is actually required to still take and pass the exams for the C1 and C2 levels of the language before they can qualify to study in a German University. Reason: Their German is still not good enough for them to fully follow, and really understand, a normal lecture in a German University.

Coming back to the mushrooming language schools springing out of every street corner here in Nigeria, majority of the people who are prancing all over the place and opening these language schools do not have even the B2 level qualification; which legally allows them to apply and possibly get a visa for short courses and some other things. They lack the C1 level qualification. And a BA certificate does not remedy this lack, and is not a substitute for it.

That tells you the type of mess we are in, with the prevailing epidemic of incompetent, fraudulent and bizarre language schools everywhere. With the level of German language proficiency found in most German language schools in Nigeria today, people are simply being swindled by individuals and groups who actually cannot meaningfully run a language school.

But they have been doing it, and getting bolder by the day in their impunity, because there are no strict regulations. Also, because of what I call “unconscious collusion” by those whom, as regulators of the learning space, many do not know any better. Once someone flashes a certificate, usually of questionable pedigree but without really knowing the German language, he is deemed qualified to teach the language. If perchance, he or she even goes further to say “Guten Morgen” (Good Morning), forthwith, his exceptional proficiency in the language is presumed confirmed beyond question and beyond reproach.

We simply cannot go on like this on matters of this nature, as a nation.

As I write, all sorts of Language Schools are everywhere, particularly at the sub-national level. They are boldly, and cheerfully, promising the ignorant and unsuspecting public that they have the authorization of the appropriate authorities, and also that they possess the capacity, to make whoever approached them as proficient in the German language as any native-speaker of the language within 8 weeks.

To give greater colour and character to their nefarious activitgies, some even promise to procure German Visa for their “students” on completion of the 8 weeks, with large sums of money filched into the bargain.

It is in this way that many people are being routinely scammed, even as other equally misguided ones are lining up in great haste for their turn in a merry-go-round that I would have described as laughable, were it not so sad and unfortunate. In some states of the federation, and Anambra presents an interesting example in this regard, some of these visibly unqualified teachers are “leased” to secondary schools as teachers of one foreign language or the other.

Those superintending these leasing businesses are, themselves, usually not language teachers; with the exception of those who have scratched up one of the lowest conceivable proficiency certificates of no real value for meaningful and serious work with the language. So, what are these unqualified teachers actually teach anyone?

It is an open question whether this is not, in fact, barefaced criminality. For instance, what curriculum are they working with, and who cleared it? Who vets their lesson notes? Is there any inspection of their work, and who are their inspectors? But then, who is qualified to inspect them? Where no one can estimate, know or even speculate on what is being taught in the schools under reference, particularly in some secondary schools in Anambra State, in the name of foreign languages, is this academic progression of organized bastardization?

It is a matter of record that the German Cultural Center, that is the Goethe-Institute, Nigeria, has recognized this situation and the problem it poses. It has also started to proactively search for templates and genuinely qualified teachers of the language as partners, to see how the situation can be remedied. For example, a two-day training was given in Western Nigeria in University of Ibadan for all those who have been trying to teach German in one form or the other.

There was also another one in the South East. The interesting element of this particular one is that the Institute sought out a distinguished Nigerian scholar, Prof. Chinedu Uchechukwu, of the Department of Linguistics in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, and contracted him to give the two-day training alongside the Goethe-Institute. The Prof is easily one of the few most qualified in that subject-area in Africa. He studied Germanistics, lived, worked and taught in Germany before coming back to Nigeria after over a decade’s sojourn.

I am not surprised that the Goethe-Institute has now simply decided to rise to the challenge of stopping the bastardization of German language and aspects of German culture that are incorporated in any regular German language course; and which the Institute exists to protect. It is trying to do its best to end the growing muddle being created by many uncertified, so-called, “Language Schools” wherein the learners end up either learning nothing of true value, learning the wrong thing, or even mis-learning altogether.

The way forward in this matter is for state ministries of education to carry out a comprehensive audit of teachers of foreign languages in secondary schools, especially teachers of the German language, with the aid of confirmed authorities on the language in Nigeria. In this regard, attention should be paid to the various levels of proficiency in the language mentioned earlier in this article.

The nation needs a legal framework of sorts, in the form of a visibly enforceable law, clearly indicating that one of the conditions for establishing a language school is that the individuals who wish to do so must be holders of Doctorate Degrees (Ph.D.) in the language, from known universities of established scholarly competence. One other thing that should be incorporated in such a legal framework is that such a person should also have had a minimum of two years post-doctoral academic practice and experience in a higher institution in Nigeria, to be deemed qualified to open a language school.

A framework of this nature can help protect our secondary school children, improve the quality of foreign language teaching in Nigeria and free Nigerians from the fraudulent machinations of unscrupulous individuals and charlatans of dubious intent.