User:Ai24/Deutsch als Fremdsprache

German as a foreign language (DaF) describes the status of the German language for all speakers or learners whose mother tongue is not German. According to the study published in June 2020 by the Goethe-Institut, DAAD and the Central Office for Schools Abroad, more and more people are learning German as a foreign language, a total of 15.4 million worldwide.

DaF stands for "all practical teaching and scientific activities that deal with the German language and culture of the German-speaking countries [...]". In the narrower sense, one speaks of German as a foreign language when the German language is acquired abroad and is not necessary for everyday use. The teaching of the German language is usually controlled, i.e. in foreign language lessons.

With around 18 percent of native speakers and around 14 percent of foreign speakers, German is the most common mother tongue before English in the European Union and, together with French, the second most common foreign language.

The subject of German as a foreign language developed at the end of the 1960s for two reasons in particular: on the one hand, the number of foreign students in the Federal Republic and the GDR rose, and on the other hand, the number of migrants in Germany increased. This resulted in the growing need for trained DaF and DaZ teachers. This need is reflected in a wide range of courses and the professionalization of the training of DaF / DaZ teachers. German as a foreign language is currently taking on the status of a minor subject in the German university landscape. The Small Subjects Department currently (as of June 2019) maps 36 independent chairs at 23 German universities.

In 1956 the Institute for Foreign Studies was founded at Leipzig University (Herder Institute since 1961) to prepare foreign students for a degree in Germany. From 1970 the University of Heidelberg offered a specific German studies course for foreign students. Gerhard Helbig held the first chair for GFL in the 1960s at the Herder Institute at Leipzig University. In 1968 the Herder Institute incorporated the Central School for Foreign Citizens to prepare language skills for production engineering training, which had existed since 1962. In 1975 a further chair was established in Hamburg and in 1978 further chairs in Munich and Bielefeld. In 1997 there were already 14 chairs at eleven German universities.