Linguapax
Mercator’s Expert Meeting “More languages, more opportunities” Rotterdam
The project "More languages, more opportunities: A Papiamentu - Dutch language development project" is active in two parts of the city of Rotterdam, IJsselmonde and Hoogvliet. At this moment, the project runs there for one year in 11 families. To make the project more visible and understandable for professionals in Rotterdam that are involved in language learning, the Antillean community and/or multilingualism, an expert meeting was organized on 16 February.
Mrs Wesseling, project manager of Stichting de Meeuw - the organization which executes the project in Rotterdam coordinated by the Fryske Akademy/Mercator - opened the day with some notes about language learning, and especially the difficulties in the Dutch language.
Next, Mr Severina of Stichting Splika (organization promoting Papiamentu language in the Netherlands) introduced the theme of bilingual Papiamentu-Dutch use by telling some anecdotes. He spoke about his experiences of being a child in the Antilles. There, Papiamentu was the home and street language, but was banned from school, where only Dutch was allowed. He also spoke about his experiences as a teacher in the Antilles, where he noticed that a lot of information did not reach the children, because the Dutch language that was used was not meaningful for them. When he first came to the Netherlands, he was introduced in the Dutch society by an Antillean organisation. Because they could explain him how things work in the Netherlands in his mother tongue, Papiamentu, he could make sense of it and felt welcome in the country.
Then Mrs Verheyden-Lels of KLIK-educational support, spoke about language development in general and multilingual development specifically. With interactive techniques she showed how a child experiences language learning and what a parent can do to elicit the natural curiosity of the child to use language. She stressed the fact that parents are very important in the language development of a child. The language input parents give and the involvement parents show in the language development process, are crucial in the language development of a child, especially in the period when a child is between 0 and 6 years old.
Following, project leader and researcher Nienke Boomstra introduced the project "More languages, more opportunities". A short video illustrated the practices of a language coach during a home visit, and showed how the bilingual materials were used. The design of the project and research were explained. Three central subjects are: 1) the parental beliefs, these are the ideas the mothers have about their role in the language development of the child; 2) the (language) interaction between mother and child; and 3) the language development of the child in Papiamentu and Dutch. Reports will be written to advice professionals working on language development with the target group of Antillean families. Besides, scientific articles will be written for theoretical purposes.
Finally, Mrs Orman, an author, told us a so-called stack-story, mainly in Dutch but with some Papiamentu as well. The story was about a boy named Djan, who experiences some setbacks when he was supposed to watch the land of his neighbour. Mrs Orman told the story very lively, with expressive body language and different voices for different characters. Papiamentu has a long history of storytelling, and is still used a lot in families.
After the official programme there was some time to meet each other and talk about all themes. This gave space for open discussions and information gathering. About 55 professionals attended the expert meeting. It was considered a great success.
http://www.mercator-research.eu/news/newsarchive/February-2011#news00