When a child goes to school for the first time, it is usually the first major
change in his life. The relative freedom of home life where he can run
around, make noise and where he is usually one of a few children under his
mother's eye, is exchanged for the relatively disciplined atmosphere of
school where he has to sit still, is but one of a larger group in the classroom
and where he has to do as he is told (UNESCO, 1968). It is an even greater
change if the child completely leaves home to go to boarding school as often
happened with the Apaches in America (Liebe-Harkort, 1980). In order to
facilitate the structural change in the child's daily life, the language used at
the new school should be the same as the one used at home so that he is not
confronted with a completely new linguistic as well as social situation.