This mandate from the cantonal government in Graubünden concerned the follow-up of introducing the newly consolidated written language Rumantsch Grischun to the so-called pioneer communes in the Canton of Graubünden. The communes in question were those with Rhaeto-Romanic schools already teaching Rumantsch Grischun. The long-term plan was to introduce the new language to all Rhaeto-Romanic schools. We evaluatedvarious dimensions resulting from this major change.

The SEM had issued a mandate to the Institute of Multilingualism to develop a quality strategy for fide language courses. The purpose of the strategy is to create a common understanding of fide’s didactic principles and to support the implementation of fide in practices used to support language learning. The evaluation of the introductory fide courses and various comments from educational institutions had shown that fide was still interpreted in a variety of ways.

This project is based on the results of a survey of teachers at upper secondary schools, which was carried out by the General Secretariat of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK). The results revealed a need to couple new methodological approaches in foreign language teaching – and the corresponding instruments – with teaching literature. This issue is of particular relevance in upper secondary schools, where language learning is embedded in a literary-cultural...

The six Swiss cantons located along the German-French language border (Bern, Basel Landschaft, Basel Stadt, Fribourg, Solothurn and Valais) have issued an inter-cantonal agreement on a new concept for foreign language education at schools. The agreement stipulates that German-speaking students learn French before English.

Commissioned by:  Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK) In the spring of 2017, the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education conducted the first ever largescale assessment to measure how well students have acquired the targeted skills in the first foreign language by the end of primary school, as defined by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education.

In collaboration with the Federal Statistical Office (FSO)

In the interest of advancing multilingualism in public services, the Swiss Confederation is legally bound to promoting federal employees' language skills in Switzerland's official languages. The divisions within the Federal Administration are obligated to ensure that all employees have sufficient knowledge of a second official language and that persons in a leadership role additionally have passive skills in a third official language. To implement these directives, the Federal Administration...

Swiss National Science Foundation, project funding, Project no. 135407 The aim of this project is to develop basic standards for the languages taught at schools where Rhaeto-Romanic is spoken (i.e. Rumantsch Grischun (RG) and German). The standards are based on those used throughout Switzerland for German, French and Italian in the context of the so-called HarmoS-L1-Consortium. Wherever possible, a procedure analogous to the HarmoS methods will be chosen. 

In this project, commissioned by NWEDK, EDK Ost and BKZ, suitable lingualevel test packages were compiled to test the levels of the foreign languages French and English in public schools in the German-speaking cantons, years 6 through 9. These assessments allow planners to accurately gauge the current abilities students have in the foreign languages and to provide useful information for more efficient planning in the future.

This practical research project, commissioned by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), grants interested Swiss schools access to the internationally recognised certificate Deutsch for Jugendliche ZD j (German for young people/teenagers, level B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). The main task lies in informing and advising schools as well as in arranging license agreements for them. In addition, any student who is interested...