In Germany, separate classes for newcomer students are a common way of how to include newcomer students in school. They are referred to as preparatory classes, welcome classes, preliminary courses or similar (Massumi et al. 2015) and aim to equip the students with the necessary German language skills, so that they can move to a regular class after a certain period of time. In these separate classes the diversity of multilingual resources is one of the highest in the German school system, since the newcomer students bring along a multiplicity of heritage and foreign languages on different skill levels. However, approaches of multilingual pedagogy to date have largely focused bilingual and homogeneous multilingual learner groups – i.e. the same first language, the same language order and comparable competences (García & Flores 2010) – therefore, these concepts fall short with regard to preparatory classes. Thus, the question arises, how multilingualism can be used as a learning and teaching resource in these classes? In the proposed talk results from the project "VeRbinden: Übergänge von Vorbereitungs- in Regelklassen“ will be reported: Using expert interviews with teachers from separate classes in various German states (n=15), we analyse the role of the individual multilingualism of learners in the lessons of these teachers. The focus will be on the presentation of the manifold ways in which multilingual resources are included in the classes. At the same time, we identify challenges that teachers face with the inclusion. References: Massumi, von Dewitz, Grießbach, Terhart, Wagner, Hippmann & Altinay (2015). Neu zugewanderte Kinder und Jugendliche im deutschen Schulsystem. Köln: Mercator-Institut für Sprachförderung und Deutsch als Zweitsprache, Zentrum für LehrerInnenbildung an der Universität zu Köln. García & Flores (2010). Multilingual pedagogies. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge & A. Creese (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (pp. 232-246). Abingdon: Routledge.
