This poster will detail the diverse activities undertaken by the Coordination Office for Multilingualism and Language Education (KoMBi) at the University of Hamburg. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, KoMBi provides support infrastructure for a total of twelve projects, based at various institutes of higher education throughout Germany, that conduct research on multilingualism and language education. As such, this proposal does not describe a research project per se. Rather, it outlines the objectives and actions of KoMBi undertaken on behalf of and in coordination with the twelve projects that make up this research cluster. The aims of the conference poster are thus twofold: 1) to convey the range and scope of research on multilingualism and language education in Germany through a central coordination point; 2) to detail the actions undertaken by KoMBi to meet the objectives of networking, impact, dissemination and sustainability in research on multilingualism and language education.

The German Ministry of Education and Research finances the research cluster on multilingualism and language education, coordinated by KoMBi, in recognition of the significance of language diversity – an increasing trend across all European societies which enforces the need for European citizens to be able to communicate in languages other than their own. Fostering multilingualism is therefore a declared aim of education policies in Europe, as proclaimed, for example, by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF 2012). Two challenges arise from the presence of language diversity in classrooms. The first is to make use of the language resources that multilingual students bring with them; the second is to build on and further develop multilingual competences. This includes family languages as well as the language of schooling (Gogolin & Lange 2010). Current education policies often retain a monolingual bias whereby family (i.e. immigrant) languages are viewed as an impediment to majority language acquisition and to educational success. Research shows, however, that family languages do not impede the language of schooling (cf. Krompàk 2010).The projects in the research cluster on multilingualism and language education are tasked with investigating the ways in which multilingual resources can be integrated in mainstream education and how multilingualism can be fostered across subjects. Each with a distinct research focus, from kindergarten to young adults, the participating projects investigate inter alia which language biographies, learning settings, language education programmes and language learning strategies have favourable or unfavourable effects on the development of multilingual competences.

The cluster is coordinated by KoMBi, which can be described as a unique service infrastructure for research projects. Its tasks are to enforce internal networking between the projects, facilitating knowledge exchange and synergies through the sharing of research instruments, knowledge in data collection and data evaluation. KoMBi further supports external networking with national and international research projects on related topics. It disseminates research results to various target groups: research community, education policy and practice. KoMBi also supports sustainable data management, organises trainings for doctoral and junior researchers working in the research cluster, and assists in the identification and development of research topics.

Via poster presentation we aim to outline the twelve projects in our research cluster and to highlight the advantages of thematically focussed support infrastructures in higher education.  In keeping with our objectives, we will thereby disseminate research findings on multilingualism and language education from Germany, with the accompanying objective to network with researchers in similar fields and to initiate cooperation or secondary data usage between European researchers. 

BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung/ Federal Ministry of Education and Research), (2012). Bekanntmachung des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung von Richtlinien zur Förderung von Forschung im Bereich „Sprachliche Bildung und Mehrsprachigkeit“: https://www.bmbf.de/foerderungen/bekanntmachung.php?B=774. Accessed 15.01.2016. Gogolin, I., & Lange, I. (2010). Durchgängige Sprachbildung. Eine Handreichung. FörMig Material, Vol. 2. Münster: Waxmann. Krompàk, E. (2010). Entwicklung der Erst- und Zweitsprache im interkulturellen Kontext. Eine empirische Untersuchung über den Einfluss des Unterrichts in heimatlicher Sprache und Kultur (HSK) auf die Sprachentwicklung. Münster: Waxmann.