May 2011

A summary of the news for May.

• Fifth European Expert Seminar: “Cultural Education and Civil Society: How can Languages contribute?"
• Conference "Early foreign language learning"
• UNESCO Expert Meeting: “Towards UNESCO Guidelines on Language Policies: a Tool for Language Assessment and Planning”

Fifth European Expert Seminar: “Cultural Education and Civil Society: How can Languages contribute?”

Cooperation project Fryske Akademy and Basque Autonomous Community will be continued for four more years.

Together with the Basque Autonomous Community the Mercator Research Centre of the Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy) organised the fifth European Expert Seminar: “Cultural Education and Civil Society: How can Languages contribute?” The seminar took place in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, on Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th of May. All participants, experts from the Basque Country and Fryslân, but also from all around Europe, look back on a very succesfull seminar. After five years of cooperation, this would be the final seminar in the context of the cooperation project, but that won't be the case.

(Group photo participants)

The Basque government and Mercator are so pleased with the results of the cooperation, that both parties decided to continue working together. To confirm this, representatives of the Basque government and Mercator signed a declaration of intent for the period 2012 - 2015. In this period research will be executed on bi- and trilingual education, with special attention for Inglish classes, and results will be exchanged. The situations in both regions related to minority languages are quite similar and thus they can learn a lot from each other. The aim is to come to a definitive contract in which all the details are worked out as quickly as possible.

 

Conference "Early foreign language learning"

Policy, science and practice in the field of early foreign language learning were brought together at the conference "Early foreign language learning" on May 12, 2011 in Utrecht. Progression is certainly there! In the Netherlands there are more than 600 vvto (‘vroeg vreemdetalenonderwijs’, early foreign language learning) primary schools. These schools teach children a foreign language from an early age. In 2003 there were only 40 vvto-schools. The prognosis is that internationalisation is increasing in the Dutch education systems. It won't be a matter of many years before the number of 1000 vvto-primary schools is reached.

Vvto-primary schools teach more than just the compulsory English course in grades 7 and 8. Even languages like German, French, Spanish, Frisian and English are offered from grade 1 (children aged 4 years). In Fryslân, more than 50 primary schools are trilingual, the languages Frisian, Dutch and English are taught from grade 1. All these schools are affiliated with the early foreign language learning network, a part of the European Platform, the center for internationalisation in Dutch primary schools, secondary schools and teacher training.

The central message of the speakers (Prof. Janet van Hell, Prof. Kees de Bot and Mrs. Evelyn Krikhaar) at the conference was: "Start early!" There are many advantages when children have the opportunity to acquire more languages at an early age. Some benefits to learn more languages from the early start are:

• Children communicate easier, faster and better with other people in this increasingly globalised world.
• Children have less shame than adults to learn a language other than their mother tongue.
• The pronunciation is better, there is less accented speaking.
• Grammar is better managed, there is also more change to develop better writing skills.
• There are vocabulary advantages, the meaning of a word can be determined better.

Guest speaker Mrs. Marja van Bijsterveldt, Minister of Education, Culture and Science received a note, the first copy of the standard vvto. In her speech, the Minister brought up an important advice of the Education Council, written in June 2008: "Start early with a foreign language, preferably in the lowest groups of primary school, so children will use a language at a good level."
Children can flourish their talents through good language input in the educational system in the Netherlands. Because, "language is the basis for a brilliant educational career." The Minister promotes the work of the vvto- network provided that the results of the study English at primary schools are positive. This research is called FLIPP (Foreign Languages in Primary school Project) conducted by the University of Groningen and Utrecht University. "If this study suggests that early language learning produced indeed a positive influence on the language performance of students in the broad - and therefore, indirectly from repeating the performance in other subjects - then there is a firmly based story to build further on the current early foreign language policy". In 2013, the results of the research are expected. The Minister indicated that there needs to be patient, but ambition must remain as it is said in English: "Good policy should not be built to go fast. It should be built to go far."

The pioneers of vvto will not wait, they continue to proclaim the value of multilingualism in education in the Netherlands. The continuous learning line between the primary and secondary education should be enhanced. And the quality of teachers and teacher training must be improved, by offering minors multilingualism and minors English. There is still much work to do for the pioneers to convince policymakers, school boards, parents and especially teachers of learning foreign languages at early ages.

 

UNESCO Expert Meeting: “Towards UNESCO Guidelines on Language Policies: a Tool for Language Assessment and Planning”

In 2003 an ad hoc workgroup of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO has developed a number of criteria to determine the vitality of a language and its possible status of endangerment. Dr. Tjeerd de Graaf, research fellow at the Fryske Akademy and the Mercator Research Centre has been one of the members of this workgroup and during three days he was invited to consider the follow-up of this work during an expert meeting at the UNESCO office in Paris. This interdisciplinary meeting was organised by the three UNESCO sectors on Culture, Communication and Information and Education and brought together about 35 scholars who considered the problem of language vitality and endangerment from different points of view.

After a number of keynote speeches by specialist in the fields of linguistics, anthropology, education, information and communication science the following existing factors of endangerment were discussed:

• Factor 1. Intergenerational Language Transmission
• Factor 2. Absolute Number of Speakers
• Factor 3. Proportion of Speakers within the Total Population
• Factor 4. Trends in Existing Language Domains
• Factor 5. Response to New Domains and Media
• Factor 6. Materials for Language Education and Literacy
• Factor 7. Governmental and Institutional Language Attitudes and Policies, Including Official Status and Use
• Factor 8. Community Members’ Attitudes toward Their Own Language
• Factor 9. Amount and Quality of Documentation

In three discussion groups each factor was carefully considered and where necessary the related definitions and descriptions were modified according to the recent developments. In this way a revised version of the Language Vitality and Endangerment methodology will be prepared together with a tool for UNESCO member states to assess their local language situation.

During these days also the further improvement of the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger was considered. Tjeerd de Graaf, who is as regional editor responsible for the part of the Atlas on Europe and the Caucasus, had consultations about the internet version with the editor-in-chief Christopher Moseley. During these days the Spanish version of the printed Atlas and a special brochure on this UNESCO project was launched.

Further information is available on the website www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas