Language awareness amongst teachers in a central German dialect area

According to Wegera (1983: 1477) little research has been done into how conscious teachers are of the specific needs of pupils who speak non-standard dialects of German. Mattheier (1980: 126) complains that teachers are only slowly being involved in the process of changing attitudes towards non-standard dialects and their speakers by being confronted systematically with such issues during their training and being encouraged to reflect on their own prejudices. Hagen (1987: 75) writes: ‘Several research projects have shown that teachers do not know how to cope with the problems of dialect-speaking children in schools. [...] Didactic literature seldom presents suggestions and recommendations. [...] In teacher colleges and teacher training this problem is almost non-existant [sic]’.