German language teaching 

from École Maternelle / Kindergarten to Lycée / High School

German language teaching 

from École Maternelle / Kindergarten to Lycée / High School

Pupils who are Austrian or Austrian and one or more other nationalities 

… are taught in Aus­tri­an moth­er tongue accord­ing to the Aus­tri­an cur­ricu­lum. This teach­ing is inte­grat­ed from the CP to the 3ème in the inter­na­tion­al Ger­man lan­guage section.

The French-Aus­tri­an cul­tur­al agree­ments define the teach­ing of Ger­man as a moth­er tongue:

  • Pupils attend the Ger­man moth­er tongue class­es (4–6 hours);
  • Pupils fol­low his­to­ry and geog­ra­phy lessons in Ger­man as their moth­er tongue from CM2 (1–2 hours);
  • These pupils have to pre­pare and take two oral exam­i­na­tions at the end of Troisième (as part of the inter­na­tion­al sec­tion and the DNB): in Ger­man as a moth­er tongue and in history/geography in Ger­man as a moth­er tongue;
  • They have to pre­pare and take the Matu­ra (in Terminale);
  • They receive reli­gious instruc­tion (1–2 hours) of their reg­is­tered faith. The fol­low­ing cours­es are offered from the CP in the École Élé­men­taire: the Catholic, Protes­tant, Jew­ish and Mus­lim reli­gions (CP to CM1). Reli­gious edu­ca­tion is manda­to­ry for Aus­tri­an pupils who have reg­is­tered one, but it is pos­si­ble to be exempt­ed in writ­ing at the begin­ning of each school year. Pupils of no reli­gious affil­i­a­tion (ORB) have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to reg­is­ter for one of the reli­gious edu­ca­tion cours­es by writ­ing at the begin­ning of each school year. An elec­tron­ic infor­ma­tion let­ter is sent out at the begin­ning of the school year.

For pupils of any other nationality

  • These pupils attend Ger­man as a for­eign lan­guage cours­es at their lev­el. From the 2nde, they can take the ÖSD (« Öster­re­ichis­ches Sprachdiplom»), exam­i­na­tions, organ­ised exter­nal­ly, if they wish to pur­sue fur­ther post-sec­ondary stud­ies in Aus­tria or elsewhere.
  • On request, they can join the inter­na­tion­al Ger­man lan­guage sec­tion and thus the Aus­tri­an cours­es in Ger­man as a native lan­guage, after a posi­tion­ing test or a rec­om­men­da­tion from their teacher at the LFV. They then take class­es in Ger­man as a native lan­guage (and: history/geography in Ger­man as a native lan­guage from CM2 onwards). Upon writ­ten request from their par­ents, they can enrol in a reli­gion course offered at the school: Catholic, Protes­tant, Jew­ish, Mus­lim (CP to CM1) from École Élé­men­taire (CP) onwards.

The Matura: Secondary School Leaving Examination in Austria

Aus­tri­an pupilsmust take the bac­calau­réat and the Matura. 

Pupils with any oth­er nation­al­i­ty take the bac­calau­réat. In the ter­mi­nale, they can apply for the Matu­ra if they fol­low the Aus­tri­an cur­ricu­lum (Ger­man as moth­er tongue / his­to­ry + geog­ra­phy in Ger­man as moth­er tongue).

Matu­ra terms and conditions

  • The Fran­co-Aus­tri­an cul­tur­al agree­ments define the modal­i­ties for issu­ing the Matu­ra. “Com­ple­men­tary tests” (one writ­ten exam­i­na­tion + two oral exam­i­na­tions) allow pupils of the Lycée Français de Vienne to obtain their diplo­ma. They include:
    • in Ger­man as a moth­er tongue: a writ­ten test of 5 hours and an oral test between 10 and 15 min­utes (20 min­utes preparation);
    • in Ger­man as a moth­er tongue: an oral test between 10 and 15 min­utes (20 min­utes prepa­ra­tion time); and/or :
    • in his­to­ry in Ger­man as a moth­er tongue and/or geog­ra­phy in Ger­man as a moth­er tongue: an oral test of between 10 and 15 min­utes (20 min­utes prepa­ra­tion time).
  • The Matu­ra is grant­edif two con­di­tions are met:
    • suc­cess at the baccalauréat ;
    • Aus­tri­an Matu­ra grades positive
  • Tran­scrip­tion of the Matu­ra and Ger­man grades for the bac­calau­réat: Con­tin­u­ous exam­i­na­tion tests in Ger­man are replaced by Aus­tri­an tests. The results of the con­tin­u­ous eval­u­a­tion, the aver­age results of the final cycle (1ère and Ter­mi­nale) and the writ­ten and oral exams of the Matu­ra are con­vert­ed by a spe­cif­ic har­mon­i­sa­tion board. The marks obtained in this way replace the marks for Ger­man as a for­eign lan­guage at the baccalauréat.