Multilingualism is highly valued in today's world. Knowledge of additional languages develops the individual’s language ability and their intercultural competence. German is an important language in international business and Slovenia’s neighbouring country Austria offers many opportunities in the field of economy, therefore learning German in Slovenian schools makes sense. Early language learning in primary school is an added value for pupils, especially due to subconscious acquisition and longer exposure to a foreign language. In this master thesis, we present the position of German as a foreign language in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade in Slovenian primary schools. With the year 2013, the second foreign language was made an optional elective and it became possible for pupils to learn German from the 4th grade onwards. In our research, we focused on the implementation of German lessons from the teachers' perspective. We collected the views of seven German teachers with work experience in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade about early German language learning and asked them about the approaches and methods they use, the integration of culture in German lessons, their education, their sense of competence, and about the most common problems, which they face. Using semi-structured interviews, we found that German teachers are in favour of early foreign language learning, use diverse approaches and methods, and include the cultural aspect in their lessons. They also pointed out some systemic problems related to the attributes of the optional elective subject, such as the heterogeneity of the pupils, the implementation time, the number of pupils and the status of the German language. In our conclusion, we summarized our findings to six points, which serve as a proposal for improving German lessons in Grades 4 to 6. The research will help to reflect on the position of German as a second foreign language of Slovenian primary schools and the realisation that knowledge of additional languages in late childhood is useful.
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