Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine
Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Luxembourg Centre for European Law
Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems
First longitudinal results of the ALPHA pilot project
LUCET “First longitudinal results on academic achievement and motivation of students participating in the ALPHA pilot project”Context
Luxembourg’s school population is linguistically highly diverse with about 60 % of primary school students speaking another language than Luxembourgish and/or German at home.
As Luxembourgish is the main language in preschool and German is the language of initial literacy instruction in Cycle 2.1, many children learn to read and write in a language that is not their home language.
National and international studies, such as 脡pStan and PISA, consistently show that these students are more likely to face academic challenges. These inequalities are assumed to result from the high language expectations of the national curriculum.
To better support multilingual learners, the Luxembourgish government has expanded its language offer through European Public Schools and the ALPHA 鈥 zesumme wuessen pilot project, which allows first-grade students to begin literacy acquisition in either French or German.
This approach is supported by international research, which shows that children often have better learning opportunities when the language of instruction is linguistically closer to the students鈥 home language.
Scientific evaluation of the pilot project 鈥淎LPHA 鈥 zesumme wuessen鈥 and methodology
Students in the ALPHA pilot project participate in the Luxembourg School Monitoring Programme . This makes it possible to compare their academic achievement and motivation with those of students following the national curriculum and to evaluate the impact of the pilot project using comprehensive, nationwide data.
While the first LUCET report (2024) focused on students during their first year of primary school (C2.1), the current report follows the same cohort into the next learning cycle (C3.1), providing new insights into their learning progress over time.
Composition of the five comparison groups
To ensure fair comparisons regarding student outcomes such as academic achievement, students participating in the ALPHA pilot project were compared with statistically matched reference groups (via propensity score matching) consisting of students with comparable backgrounds (e.g., language background, socioeconomic status).
Central findings in C3.1 and interpretation
Students were tested in mathematics, as well as in listening and reading comprehension in their respective language of literacy acquisition.
| Groups | Number of students | Mathematics | Listening Comprehension | Reading Comprehension |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALPHA-French | 37 | French | French | French |
| ALPHA-German | 46 | German | German | German |
| ALPHA-French reference group | 172 | German | German | German |
| ALPHA-German reference group | 257 | German | German | German |
| National level | 4769 | German | German | German |
On average, students in C3.1 showed comparable academic achievement results in mathematics as well as in listening and reading comprehension, and this irrespective of their language of literacy acquisition.
Academic motivation was generally high across all five student groups. While ALPHA-German students expressed a higher motivation in mathematics compared to all the other groups, ALPHA-French students reported a higher motivation to learn in their language of literacy acquisition.
In addition, ALPHA-French students expressed a lower academic wellbeing, whereas ALPHA-German students reported a higher wellbeing than all other groups.
Although parental support was also generally high across all groups, ALPHA-French parents reported a higher perceived capacity to support their child academically compared to parents from the ALPHA-French reference group.
Possible explanation and methodological limitations
Despite international research showing that learning to read and write in a language linguistically closer to the students鈥 home language background facilitates literacy development, this expected advantage is currently not reflected in the C3.1 脡pStan data.
One possible explanation is that students are learning to read and write in different orthographic systems. In contrast to German, French is an opaque language and has more complex relationships between letters and sounds, potentially influencing the pace in which students acquiring literacy. As a result, literacy acquisition in French may develop more slowly and potential advantages for ALPHA-French students may only become visible at later stages of primary education (e.g., C4.1).
A further explanation might lie in the roles of the instruction languages within the pilot project. Whereas students in ALPHA are split into respective language of literacy acquisition groups for language subjects and mathematics (depending on the respective school鈥檚 decision), the so-called side subjects (e.g., science, art, sports) are taught orally in Luxembourgish with written materials and visual supports provided in the students鈥 respective language of literacy acquisition. Both ALPHA-French and ALPHA-German students are thus less exposed to their respective language of literacy acquisition than students following the national curriculum or attending European Public Schools with one main instruction language across all subjects. This difference in language exposure may influence students’ literacy development.
Although these findings offer important indications on key educational outcomes of students, who are taking part in the pilot project, they have to be interpreted with caution due to the very limited cohort size (i.e., N = 37 ALPHA-French and N = 46 ALPHA-German students) and the resulting methodological limitations (e.g., French language tests cannot be scaled, test comparability).
Conclusion and Outlook
The current report does not provide any indication of systematic performance differences in favour of students learning to read and write in French. Additionally, it should be noted that the present report does not allow to draw conclusions about how the results found in the specific context of the pilot project (e.g., student composition in the four pilot schools, which differs considerably from students at the national level) would generalize to the national education system in the scope of a nationwide implementation of the pilot project.
From a scientific perspective, encompassing further cross-sectional as well as longitudinal research with bigger and more representative samples is needed before being able to draw sound conclusions on the potential impact of the pilot project on students鈥 academic development. In this context, the continuous monitoring in the 脡pStan (e.g., C4.1) would provide essential additional insights on the effectiveness of the pilot project in Luxembourg鈥檚 unique trilingual educational system.
While the LUCET considers the broadening of the language offer in Luxembourg’s school system a valuable approach, the current findings suggest that key aspects of its implementation warrant further evaluation. This includes factors such as students’ exposure to the language of instruction, class composition, and the pedagogical approaches used, all of which may affect learning outcomes.