Congratulations to our Kindergarten teacher Leonie Weimann who was invited to speak at a conference on the topic of ‘Early Childhood Bilingualism and Multilingualism’ at the Edith Stein School, Academy for Educators and Episcopal College for Social Pedagogy in Saarland, Germany on the 26th of September 2022.
Among other guest speakers was Mrs Eva Hammes-Di Bernardo, a representative of the German Ministry of Education, who dispelled an old prejudice in her speech: “Multilingualism in early childhood does not overstrain children at all. The opposite is the case. The mental, the cognitive development of children is promoted.” After that, Leonie Weimann talked about what early childhood bilingualism and multilingualism look like in daily practice. Other guest speakers represented European partner institutions such as the AJEFA Kinder école in Paris, the Kindergarten of the German School Rome and the Kindergarten of the German School Warsaw. St. Kilian’s is a proud member of an international network of European partner schools which allows the exchange of valuable insights. We are already looking forward to the next conference which will be on the topic ‘Inclusion’.
