Weak language skills in the school’s language of instruction are assumed to be a key factor in contributing to the on average lower competencies of students with an immigrant background (Stanat & Christensen, 2006). The achievement gap between second-language learners and their monolingual peers has been well documented (Abedi & Gandara 2006). Thus, mastering the required instructional language seems to be a barrier in the skill development of students from immigrant families. Language support for multilingual learners plays a major role in classrooms today. In Germany, teacher education includes OTLs in the field of German as a second language (GSL) which aim at enabling future teachers to support second-language learners in their skill development. But GSL is only an inherent part of teacher education in a few federal states of Germany. Berlin’s universities provide OTL in teacher education in the field of GSL since 2007. The Berlin GSL training offers opportunities not only to acquire basic skills of second language instruction but also subject-specific knowledge that is closely related to language challenges. Results of teacher education research show that differences in OTL may lead to significant differences in student achievements (Kleickmann & Anders 2011; König, Blömeke & Kaiser 2010). Up to now the relationship between OTL in teacher education and professional competencies of future teachers in the field of GSL has not been examined in depth. The present study examines the relationship between future teachers´ GSL-competence and OTL within the framework of the Berlin GSL-training. Data was collected in the context of the project Sprachen-Bilden-Chancen: Innovationen für das Berliner Lehramt in April 2015. Future teachers´ GSL-competencies (N=431) were measured using the standardized test DaZKom (Köker et al., 2015). The sample consists of 307 Bachelor and 124 Master students who study different subjects at three different universities in Berlin. The data was Rasch scaled; Weighted Likelihood Estimates (WLEs) were calculated as person parameters for each student. A first analyses shows that Master students have significant higher GSL-competencies compared to Bachelor students. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between the self-reported OTLs of the students and their achievement in the DaZKom-Test. Students OTLs outside of university will be included as control variables in further analysis.

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