# The obstacle of immigrating with a teenager.



## Kavinsky

My family is currently residing in the US, however, my husband is Dutch. We have not yet completed his immigration process here, but we have decided we do not want to stay in the US. (We do realize he will receive a 10 year ban from the US.) We have chosen Germany, because we think it's a beautiful, intelligent country, and it is close to his family in the Netherlands. Our major concern is that my daughter is 14. We plan to move this summer, and that will put her at going into the 10th grade. 

She does not speak any German. I can find no information regarding her transition into school over in Germany. Her grades are good (all A's and one B), and she is on the honor roll. We have started her learning the basics of German, and plan to get her a tutor as well, in hopes she will pick up a lot of German before we move. We also plan to slowly transition into speaking German at home (my husband speaks it fluently and I know the basics but will be studying further), in order to help her. 

She is extremely excited about moving, and is already pushing to study German (without even being prodded), but she is intimidated by the three tiers of schooling considering her complete current understanding of the German language. She is worried that if she does not speak it well enough, she will be put into a lower tier. She is very studious, so this is extremely concerning for her.

Can someone please give me as much information as possible about how this transition will or could potentially go, as well as additional things we can do to prepare her? Also, are there things she should get from her current teachers this year (such as letters of recommendation, for example)?

Any input will be greatly appreciated! Thank you.


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## Kavinsky

There's a typo in there. I meant to put her complete current lack of understanding of the German language.


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## ALKB

Kavinsky said:


> My family is currently residing in the US, however, my husband is Dutch. We have not yet completed his immigration process here, but we have decided we do not want to stay in the US. (We do realize he will receive a 10 year ban from the US.) We have chosen Germany, because we think it's a beautiful, intelligent country, and it is close to his family in the Netherlands. Our major concern is that my daughter is 14. We plan to move this summer, and that will put her at going into the 10th grade.
> 
> She does not speak any German. I can find no information regarding her transition into school over in Germany. Her grades are good (all A's and one B), and she is on the honor roll. We have started her learning the basics of German, and plan to get her a tutor as well, in hopes she will pick up a lot of German before we move. We also plan to slowly transition into speaking German at home (my husband speaks it fluently and I know the basics but will be studying further), in order to help her.
> 
> She is extremely excited about moving, and is already pushing to study German (without even being prodded), but she is intimidated by the three tiers of schooling considering her complete current understanding of the German language. She is worried that if she does not speak it well enough, she will be put into a lower tier. She is very studious, so this is extremely concerning for her.
> 
> Can someone please give me as much information as possible about how this transition will or could potentially go, as well as additional things we can do to prepare her? Also, are there things she should get from her current teachers this year (such as letters of recommendation, for example)?
> 
> Any input will be greatly appreciated! Thank you.



Your options will depend on where exactly in Germany you are going to move to.

Education is not a federal matter but governed by each state individually, so we have 16 different school systems, some more similar than others.

10th grade is when German pupils take their first big exams and can leave school afterwards (or must, if they don't have the grades to go on to do Abitur), so that's a complication.

German schools don't exactly have a good track record of integrating non-native speakers, some do so extremely successfully after a very short amount of time, others struggle and never make it through the system.

With all the welcome classes that opened up all over the country in the last two years, she might get chucked in with the refugee children to first learn German.

Or she might get the foreign exchange student treatment and be put directly into the German system. How well that goes depends on a lot of factors. My high school had several Canadian exchange students every year and some of them were fluent after three months while others didn't seem to have picked up a single word. Your daughter seems to be enthusiastic, so that bodes well.

If you are in one of the bigger cities (namely Berlin), there might be options of bilingual(-ish) or English medium state schools (competitive).

The last option is of course one of the really expensive English medium private schools. Again, availability depends on the area you move to.

My older daughter is currently in 10th grade, too and I've been looking into ways to get back to Germany without ruining her education. Our own complication on top of everything is, that Scottish pupils take their GCSE's after 11th grade, so I think we need to wait for another school year before we move back.


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## ALKB

Kavinsky said:


> She is worried that if she does not speak it well enough, she will be put into a lower tier. She is very studious, so this is extremely concerning for her.


If one is available in your area, you can try to get admission in a Gesamtschule, a high school that combines all three tiers of the German high school system and makes it possible to move up within the school.

Otherwise, I can recommend either JFK High School in Berlin (jointly financed by the USA and Berlin, very hard to get a place) or Nelson Mandela School in Berlin (international state school aimed at highly mobile families).

Have you decided where you will be moving to?


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## Kavinsky

We have not decided. Freiburg is probably where we'd like to settle, but since my husband and I both work from home, we have no issues with staying somewhere temporarily until she finishes school. Is Berlin the best option for us? Dusseldorf is close proximity to where my husband's parents live in the Netherlands, but we have no qualms on moving anywhere within Germany. We would like to give her the best experience possible for her schooling.


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## Nononymous

While it's good that your daughter is enthusiastic about the move, I think 10th grade is probably far too late for a successful transition into the German school system if she has no previous experience with the language. 

At her age the best option would be private international school, but of course that can be very expensive.

The next option would be a public dual-track system where she can be taught in English. For this I know only of the JFK and Mandela schools in Berlin - and finding a place in either could be difficult. 

Following that a "bilingual" school with some subjects taught in English might be better than nothing, but those programs are again oversubscribed, and the students are expected to have German for their other subjects. 

You could also look at public Gymnasium teaching the IB program in English, but that is only an option for the final two years, is very challenging academically, and might still require a high standard of German for graduation. 

Other points have been made already, about Germany's generally poor record integrating non-native speakers into the school system, the streaming into university-bound versus not at a relatively early age, the importance of the Abitur exams in the final year. 

Based on our fairly limited experience, having a relatively fluent 13-year-old do half of 8th grade in a regular Gymnasium while on sabbatical, you not only need to cope with the language issues - and it's not just a matter of gaining conversational German to have a social life, but also good written German for academic results, which is much harder - but also a very different teaching styles and school cultures. While some things are universal - teenagers - we found the relationship between students and teachers to be more adversarial, and the overall environment less supportive (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if it makes students more independent and less coddled). 

Overall I think you'd be much better off with private school in English, and lots of effort put into studying German, plus hopefully extracurricular or social activities that get her out of the expat bubble so she can use the language. Going into a regular school could work if you found the right environment and your daughter picked up the language quickly, but the risks are very high and it would require a huge effort on everyone's part.


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## HKG3

Kavinsky said:


> My family is currently residing in the US, however, my husband is Dutch.


Another suggestion for the OP - why not move to an English speaking country in the EU like the UK or Ireland first? You can stay there until your daughter goes to university and then move to Germany.


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## ALKB

Kavinsky said:


> since my husband and I both work from home, we have no issues with staying somewhere temporarily until she finishes school.


Does that mean you are self-employed or are you going to work remotely for your US employer?

In both cases you should carefully research cost for German health insurance and social security contributions, as you won't have a German employer paying half of all of this.


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## Kavinsky

HKG3 said:


> Another suggestion for the OP - why not move to an English speaking country in the EU like the UK or Ireland first? You can stay there until your daughter goes to university and then move to Germany.


My husband's family is in the Netherlands. We know nothing about those countries.


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## Kavinsky

ALKB said:


> Does that mean you are self-employed or are you going to work remotely for your US employer?
> 
> In both cases you should carefully research cost for German health insurance and social security contributions, as you won't have a German employer paying half of all of this.


My husband will have no issues working, and I am self employed online. We have no issues with the moving process or jobs, etc. Our only issue is this one.


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## *Sunshine*

I don't understand why you'd want to move to Germany with a teenager who can't speak German. You can't homeschool here and conversational German is not sufficient. 

I'd highly recommend looking into private international schools.


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## Nononymous

Kavinsky said:


> My husband will have no issues working, and I am self employed online. We have no issues with the moving process or jobs, etc. Our only issue is this one.


You don't need to find employment, which is good, but you do have issues with jobs - if you're both self-employed you'll need to be paying the full cost of your health insurance, plus presumably some sort of pension contribution. That may or may not be a problem, but it's something to consider. 

You are probably right that education is the bigger issue. I personally would not consider schooling in German this late in the game, unfortunately.


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## Kavinsky

Nononymous said:


> You don't need to find employment, which is good, but you do have issues with jobs - if you're both self-employed you'll need to be paying the full cost of your health insurance, plus presumably some sort of pension contribution. That may or may not be a problem, but it's something to consider.
> 
> You are probably right that education is the bigger issue. I personally would not consider schooling in German this late in the game, unfortunately.


Do you think that even with tutoring and practice daily from now until this next summer, she will not be able to handle it?


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## Kavinsky

*Sunshine* said:


> I don't understand why you'd want to move to Germany with a teenager who can't speak German. You can't homeschool here and conversational German is not sufficient.
> 
> I'd highly recommend looking into private international schools.


We have lots of personal reasons for doing so. The other option is moving to the Netherlands, but that will make the issue worse, because aside from my husband, none of us speak one word of Dutch (unless, I suppose, we put her in an international school, but we could do that in Germany). I have a general understanding of German, and my husband is fluent, so it is far easier to teach her German, as I can help her with it when he is not able, and further my understanding of the language as she learns.

Private international schools or private English speaking schools is an option for us, financially. So that's something we can try for.

We do have until summer to prepare, and we have the means to hire a tutor for her to advance her German, aside from learning at home. I'm not sure if this will solve the issue or not, but it could not hurt and is what we had planned to do.


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## Nononymous

Kavinsky said:


> Do you think that even with tutoring and practice daily from now until this next summer, she will not be able to handle it?


No.

Obviously I can't say that with complete certainty, but it's a huge risk to mess with the final years of education when the odds of success are so low.


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## Kavinsky

Nononymous said:


> No.
> 
> Obviously I can't say that with complete certainty, but it's a huge risk to mess with the final years of education when the odds of success are so low.


It's 8 months away. I guess we will have to see how she progresses and decide based on that.


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## Nononymous

Kavinsky said:


> It's 8 months away. I guess we will have to see how she progresses and decide based on that.


To give you some perspective, our daughter started 8th grade in Berlin with good conversational fluency and basic writing skills after multiple summer visits, half of 4th grade on the previous sabbatical, and years of Saturday morning German school - far more than you'd likely accomplish in eight months unless your daughter has truly exceptional facility for language. 

She fit right in, made friends immediately and had a great time for the five months we were there, partly because she had the luxury of being an exchange student who didn't need to care about her marks. It couldn't have gone much better - though it was certainly not without its stressful moments - but I would have had serious reservations about her staying there until graduation - five years away, not three - because she was so far behind her classmates academically, despite being a very bright kid with very good marks in a challenging program at home. It would have required a painful amount of tutoring and extra work for her to catch up and do well.

On edit: At very least, have private English school ready as a back-up plan if Gymnasium doesn't work out. That might delay graduation by a year but it won't be time wasted if the first attempt also serves as a crash-course in German.


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## Bevdeforges

If you haven't already seen this, take a look at the information on europa.eu Starting school in another EU country - Your Europe
and then use the drop down menu to link to the suggested pages on the German public school system.

Overall, the German schools don't have a great reputation for dealing with foreign students, particularly at your daughter's age. The other key thing is that she'll be just at the age where they start tracking students for their secondary education. Eight months really isn't very long to get up to speed in the language (especially without being there and having to use it every day) and she won't be at all familiar with the peculiarities of the German system, so will be at a huge disadvantage in the tracking process.

I'd seriously consider private international school. She'll still learn German, and will have the chance to use her language skills on a day to day basis, but won't have the double whammy of trying to figure out the German educational system at the same time.
Cheers,
Bev


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## ALKB

Bevdeforges said:


> The other key thing is that she'll be just at the age where they start tracking students for their secondary education.


Actually, 'high school' starts in 5th grade in the south, where Freiburg is. 

To quote Dumbledore: "I sometimes think we sort too soon."

In most other places, high school starts with 7th grade.


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## ALKB

Kavinsky said:


> It's 8 months away. I guess we will have to see how she progresses and decide based on that.


Would you maybe have the resources to send her to a residential language summer camp? 

Or over Easter break?

There are really good language schools offering this and I have seen 8th graders who had very little German go to B2 in 5 weeks.

On another note: be prepared that Gymnasium is quite different from US high school. I went to an American private high school for a while and I could not believe how they did things: multiple choice questions, true/false, MAYBE a short essay question, MAYBE! 

I went from being good average at my Gymnasium to straight A student, honor roll and whatnot pretty much instantly even though I was still coming to grips with being taught in English. I ended up graduating among the best ten in my class and I didn't feel I had to work very hard to get there.


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## Nononymous

Our subjective impression, from the daughter who did half a year in grade 8 and her friend who stayed with us as an exchange student in grade 9, is that the Gymnasium was about a year ahead in terms of the material, and just generally more difficult. The Abitur is more advanced than the US/Canadian high school diploma - North American students wanting to attend German universities are required to do a preparatory year unless they have the full IB diploma.

So quite apart from language issues, by grade 10 she'd be a year behind at Gymnasium, and might even be advised to enter a lower grade, which may or may not be a big deal.

Regular summer camp with regular German-speaking kids works well for intense language immersion, though obviously not for reading and writing. We did that twice, with good success, albeit at a much younger age. (It's also shockingly cheap compared to camps back home, to the point where we saved enough over two weeks to cover most of her airfare.) However, by fourteen I suspect the camp years are behind most kids, so you'd be left with the summer language school option.


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## ALKB

Kavinsky said:


> It's 8 months away. I guess we will have to see how she progresses and decide based on that.


If you are really set on getting her into regular German school, this is what I would do in the situation:

Get her to attend an intensive language camp for German as a foreign language for two or three weeks during summer holidays then more or less immediately followed by a regular summer camp with German kids to really flex those language muscles - horse riding, sports, theatre, whatever floats her boat.

Then enter her into 9th grade in Germany so she can get enough time to prepare for the big 10th grade exams.

If after repeating 9th grade she feels like the German school thing is not working out, you can at that point put it down to a year of language acquisition/finding your feet and decide what to do, private international school, etc.

The Goethe Institute is a semi-governmental organisation and the authority on German as a foreign language. They also offer intensive courses for teenagers and their groups are very age-specific:

https://www.goethe.de/ins/de/en/jug.html

This is the company I use for my daughter's summer camp stays but there are of course many others:

https://www.kiju-reisen.de/

They also offer German as a foreign language camps and seem to be cheaper than Goethe but as I said the Goethe Institute is the official authority on this.


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## HKG3

Kavinsky said:


> My husband's family is in the Netherlands. We know nothing about those countries.


Unless I am wrong, my understanding is that you speak English in the US and your child's education in the US is conducted in English. This fact alone means that it is easier for your child to adjust to the new environment in Europe.

If your child holds a Dutch passport, she can study in the UK to study as part of her EEA treaty rights.


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## Nononymous

HKG3 said:


> If your child holds a Dutch passport, she can study in the UK to study as part of her EEA treaty rights.


Those rights may well have disappeared by the time she graduates.


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## HKG3

Nononymous said:


> Those rights may well have disappeared by the time she graduates.


It is true that we have no idea what will happen at the time of Brexit. However, given the OP's child is 14, she can come over to the UK to exercise EEA treaty rights as a Dutch national studying in the UK. By the time Brexit is going to happen (March 2019), she would be nearly finishing her GCSE by that stage.


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## Nononymous

Not sure what the point is here. If one parent is a Dutch national exercising treaty rights to live in the UK, the daughter would be allowed to accompany the parent and would be permitted (if not required) to attend school, regardless of her citizenship - in this situation the child herself would not be exercising treaty rights to study in the UK, surely?

The major advantage to the daughter having her own EU citizenship would be lower university tuition in the UK - but by the time she's ready for university that may no longer be available.


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