More and more universities are making efforts to anchor the subjects of language support and German as a second language in their teacher training degree programmes. But what experiences, expectations and wishes do the students themselves bring with them? The goal of the project is to learn more about the perspective of the students, and to use this knowledge to improve teacher training in the area of language education. In addition, the study represents the continuation of the 2012 nationwide survey of the way teachers view linguistic heterogeneity that was conducted by the Mercator Institute.

A pilot survey was conducted at the University of Cologne in July 2014. This was in response to the introduction of the module ‘German as a Second Language’ at the University of Cologne in the 2014/15 winter semester. The fact that a survey was carried out during the summer semester of 2014 and another in the summer semester of 2016 allows the situations before and after to be compared. Over 1,600 students on teaching degree programmes in Cologne took part in the first survey. The pilot survey was a first attempt to explore how to evaluate the modules.