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Danish has been taught in Greenland for almost a century. So what is the present situation of Danish as a subject in the Greenland Folkeskole?

The Greenland Folkeskole (primary and lower secondary education) offers a nine-year basic education, in which Class 1 corresponds to reception class in Denmark. After Class 9 there is a two-year continuation school (Classes 10 and 11), which are streamed and which end with compulsory exams at two levels, corresponding to Class 9 and Class 10 in Denmark. Apart from this, there is a one-year course school (Class 12), where it is possible for the pupils to improve their level of attainment and examination marks. After the Folkeskole, pupils can i.a. choose to go on two various courses of upper secondary education or vocational education and training.

Danish is the first foreign language. It is compulsory from Class 4 to Class 11 - and it is even possible to introduce it in Class 2 and Class 3. It must be offered at Class 12 level. At Class 10 and Class 11 level there is teaching at basic and advanced level, the courses for the two lines differing in content. At Class 12 level teaching is at two levels that differ as regards content and the number of weekly lessons, which are adapted to suit the pupils" abilities and requirements (cf. Regulation concerning the Folkeskole, s 6, s 7 and s 8).

Danish, then, is formally defined as a foreign language, although the pupils' knowledge of Danish in schools in fact ranges from use of the mother tongue, or complete bilingualism, to a total lack of knowledge of even the most rudimentary Danish vocabulary. These naturally means that day-to-day teaching in the subject is extremely problematic.

Curriculum etc. for Danish in Greenland schools

Firstly, we must take a look at the formal regulations concerning Danish in the Greenland Folkeskole:

The Home Rule Ministerial Order no. 22 of 28 June 1991 states the following:
"The aim of teaching is for pupils to acquire proficiency in understanding spoken and written Danish as well as to express themselves in the spoken and written language.
ss 2. Teaching is to increase the pupils" opportunities for gaining an independent overview of the life and culture of Denmark and the rest of the world, and to make use of the language for educational purposes.
ss 3. Teaching is to help the pupils retain their desire to use the language and to stimulate them to want to improve their linguistic abilities further.¿ ¿

The curriculum guidelines of June 1992 state the following:
"General remarks
The role of Danish as first foreign language means that the language has to be able to function for the individual pupil as a tool for the seeking of information and as a means of communicating personal viewpoints and interests.
Central concepts when planning teaching are therefore the development of pupils' understanding of the language via conversation and work with texts as well as the development of their confidence to express their own observations, attitudes and values by means of the foreign language.
At the same time, the proficiency of the pupils to acquire a foreign language is developed - to work with the learning of words, the structuring of utterances and all-round, targeted use of both the spoken and the written language in connection with work on various subjects and topics and in a variety of social contexts.
The aim of teaching is to develop the pupils" awareness of the task that learning a language involves and of their responsibility for undertaking such a task. In this connection, efforts are made to get the pupils used to the idea of working with and using the language - also outside actual teaching situations - and of becoming aware of the possibilities offered by the surroundings of using the language as a means of communication and a tool for the seeking of information in everyday life."

Danish as a school subject today - the reality

Greenland is a big country with a small population - one that is scattered across the country and which lives under very different conditions as far as teaching is concerned. There is, for example, a considerable difference between living in the capital, Nuuk, with its 12,000 inhabitants - of which 25% are Danish - and living in a settlement of 200 people, where there is perhaps not a single Danish resident.

For many pupils Danish is simply a subject they come into contact with at school, not something which is a natural part of their day-to-day lives, even though there are daily transmissions of DR and TV2 programmes (Danish national channels).

Despite the fact that, in recent years, a positive change has taken place in the attitude of both pupils and teachers towards Danish, the subject does not enjoy the same status and does not give rise to the same degree of interest as English (which is started in Class 7 - corresponding to Class 6 in Denmark). Some of the pupils have experienced Danish as being the "power language" the Danish teachers in the school make use of, where, in a conflict situation, it is the pupil/child who has to try to get by in a foreign language, whereas the teacher/adult can use his or her native tongue. Only a few Danish teachers are proficient enough in Greenlandic to be able to converse with the pupils.

The stages reached by the pupils in Danish in the final Folkeskole exams after Class 11 differ considerably. Some of them have complete or almost complete native language competence, while others can literally not string two words together. These groups may well have taken part in the same teaching during the first nine years of their schooling. What the pupils get out of the teaching is highly dependent on the pupil"s self-perception and family traditions.

The teachers

There are many Greenland teachers who are extremely proficient in Danish and who could be excellent teachers of Danish. Lack of teachers, however, always leads to the vast majority of Greenland teachers being obliged to teach in Greenlandic and content studies (religious studies) and perhaps not being allowed to teach in the subjects they specialised in at the college of education. Because of this, practically all Danish teachers teach Danish, no matter their qualifications. It is no easy situation, if one has been a teacher of physics or art in Denmark, to suddenly have to teach languages - and to pupils whose language one does not understand, into the bargain.

This is possibly one of the reasons why results are so poor at the final exams. Not all the Danish teachers have had training as language teachers - they are qualified to teach all sorts of other subjects. So they often resort to teaching in the way they themselves were once taught. But that was in Danish as a native language - and, moreover, quite a long time ago.

That is why there is implicitly a tradition among both teachers and pupils to see "Danish" as having something to do with reading aloud - nicely - with little respect being paid to content. "Danish" is something that involves "dictation", because it is also important to be able to spell correctly. It is easy for a teacher to feel satisfied if the pupils via gestures or single words indicate that they have understood something or other.

Teaching in the top classes is often highly influenced by the teaching of literature, where, for example, the use of methods of textual analysis - taken from native language instruction - occupies a prominent position. It is understandable that this happens, since in most of the classes there are pupils who can understand how to use these aids. At the same time, there are far too many pupils who have never been taught basic linguistic skills, such as to be able to construct a Danish sentence for themselves, to know the difference between present and past or to use communication strategies.

A further problem is the large turnover of teachers. It is quite normal for Danish teachers to stay in Greenland for three years - and this gives pupils engaged in an 11-year course of education the "chance" of experiencing many different people and methods. Continuous teaching with the same teacher and a fixed linguistic progression is unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.

Materials and teaching methods

Teachers do not get much help from their teaching materials. No complete modern system for the teaching of Danish as a foreign language in Greenland has yet been developed. The materials that are used in Denmark for second language teaching cannot be used as they are, because their prime aim is to to help integrate the pupils into Danish society.

Much Danish teaching material is bought that is designed for mother tongue teaching as well as a lot of material for special education, i.e. first and foremost for the teaching of reading skills. The pupils sit there zealously writing page after page of spelling training and reading exercises, etc. without saying a single word in Danish. And everyone - pupils and teachers alike - feel that they are learning something.

It is not until the pupils are to be active language users - of either the written or the spoken language - that it transpires that far too many of them have not actually learned how to express themselves. Many pupils can read aloud mechanically in an impressive way - but they understand practically nothing of what they are reading.

The attitude towards native language teaching

Generally speaking, pupils are unable to transfer skills from their teaching in Greenlandic. No real subject literature or reference works exist in Greenlandic and there is very little press. This explains why the pupils do not know such types of text from their native language teaching.

Many Greenland teachers have felt that the Greenlandic language has been seriously threatened in recent years by Danish technical and administrative language. To counteract this, Greenland instructors have often tried to use literary texts that have the old seal-hunting culture as their point of departure. The prime aim of the teaching has been to conserve and to work with reproductive skills.

If one looks at the results of the final examinations of recent years at the Greenland Folkeskole, one does of course find many pupils who are good at Danish. But far too many have not had the chance to become active language users, because far too much Danish teaching is based on outdated native language traditions and not on modern foreign language pedagogics.

So the reality of Danish as a subject in Greenland is having an incredibly hard time trying to live up to what is written in the statement of objectives and the curriculum.

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