Frisian and bilingual childcare
institutes
Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all, I will introduce myself and give you an outline of the main topics of my
presentation. The focus of the presentation is on the work and the challenges of the
Frisian medium and bilingual organisation for childcare services. In fact, this
organisation has two different, but not divergent goals: the pedagogical goal of
raising children and preparing them for the bilingual or trilingual primary school on the
one hand, and on the other hand the goal of implementing language policy in
childcare provisions.
My name is Sikko de Jong. Since my training as a primary school teacher I have
been working at primary schools in several villages of this province and I have been
headteacher of a bilingual primary school. After the introduction of Frisian as a
compulsory subject in primary schooling as from 1980, I worked for the national
agency for curriculum development SLO for 7 years, and later on I finished my career
as school inspector. Nowadays I am retired, but I am still active as the chairman of
the board of the Foundation for Frisian Medium Childcare Provisions.The board
consists of 7 persons. Fortunately the daily work is carried out by a staff of 8 people
(4 fte). All staff members are well educated and very dedicated to the job.
Currently, the Foundation bears responsibility for over 90 pre-school provisions
throughout the province.
In my presentation I would like to focus on the following topics:
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Position of the Foundation within the Frisian Language Planning Process
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Goals and objectives
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Models applied
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In-service training
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Accreditation and certification
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Challenges for the next years
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Position of the Foundation in the Frisian language Planning Process
First of all, we have to bear in mind that the province of Fryslân is officially bilingual.
All inhabitants are at least receptive bilingual Frisian-Dutch, and in addition English is
the third language for a growing number of students and adults. However, over half
of the population speaks Frisian as their mother tongue at home, in the social
environment and also in public life. Frisian can best be characterised as a language
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of informal social life as well as a cultural language which is strong in oral use, but
weak in writing.
In primary education, which caters for pupils from 4-12 years of age, both Frisian
and Dutch (the national language) are taught as a subject and used as a medium of
instruction. The history of bilingual primary education in this sense is dating back to
the 1950s. As from 1937, Frisian has been recognised in the Education Law as a
regional language, which could be taught as an optional subject, mainly in the higher
grades. After the Second World War, the concept of bilingual education was
introduced.
For more than four decades Frisian has been taught as a subject in around half of all
500 primary schools in Fryslân, whereas around 80 primary schools conducted the
bilingual model of Frisian as a medium of instruction for reading and writing skills in
the lower grades on a voluntary base.
In 1980, Frisian became a compulsory subject in the curriculum of all primary
schools. Although the majority of schools teach the language as a subject only during
one lesson per week throughout all grades, nowadays, around 20% of all schools
conduct the bilingual model and, in addition, over 30 primary schools officially are
labelled as trilingual schools.
However, in pre-school provisions, for long time the Frisian language was neglected.
We have to bear in mind that pre-school provisions, which cater for children from 0 till
4 years, started only in the 1970s. Provisions were set up as private organisations. In
the Netherlands, it is only in 2005 that the first Law on pre-school services and
provision came into force.
Our Foundation started in 1989 with a limited number of provisions, which were run
totally voluntarily. Gradually, the Foundation has grown in extent and developed in
quality.
However, until recently, in the majority of the more than 300 childcare provisions in
the province the Frisian language was not used at all. Nowadays, at least half of all
child care provisions occasionally use the successful Tomke books, songs and the
related interactive website. Further, once a year, there is a special week during which
Frisian books are read aloud by volunteers. In my view, this low profile and low cost
approach is very much fitting in the position of Frisian as the informal language of
social life on the one hand; on the other hand, this approach can be considered a first
step into the development of a more explicit implementation of bilingual or Frisian
medium provisions.
In 2003, the province of Friesland initiated a project for the implementation of
language-policy in childcare-institute and our Foundation was chosen to carry out
this job. Nowadays, we are responsible for over ninety childcare-provisions where the
language-policy is introduced. The aim of the project was that there should be 100
Frisian medium or bilingual provisions at the beginning of 2011. As a chair of the
Foundation I am proud to say that our staff members are working very hard to reach
that goal.
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Goals and objectives
As I already mentioned before, the aim of our project to achieve a number 100
monolingual Frisian medium or bilingual provisions at the beginning of 2011.
When we look back across twenty years of struggling with these topics and of
sometimes hard discussions with parents and practitioners, and when we look ahead
to the desired developments in the years to come, I must admit that it is not always
an easy task we are faced with – not in the past, and definitely not in the near future.
In my view, this task can best be characterised in terms of:
a) coping with the reality of language shift and mixing of languages;
b) continuously working at raising language awareness and strengthening language
attitudes;
c) aiming at language maintenance for Frisian mother-tongue speakers, and
d) aiming at a balanced bilingualism for both groups of children: Frisian mothertongue speakers and those children from other language backgrounds.
To be honest: in the first years it was very hard to enrol existing childcare provisions
in the process of language policy, awareness-raising and training for language
maintenance. Among the target group of practitioners, who more often than not
worked on a voluntary basis, there was hardly any awareness of the importance of a
solid language policy. Most of them weren’t aware of the problems that the mixing of
two languages can cause with regard to the language development of children. In
those days, it was quite common to find that practitioners themselves shifted from the
one language, Dutch, to the Frisian language very frequently, often even within oneand-the same sentence or paragraph.They simply didn’t care!
Moreover, the local boards and practitioners feared that attention for the Frisian
language only would cost customers. This was especially the case when we started
and our concept had not yet proved itself in practice.
Our staff members visited numerous childcare provisions and they always tried to
convince the practitioners not to mix both languages, but instead to separate both
languages in the pedagogical settings of singing, reading and playing, in other words
for different communicative goals, and at different times of communication.
However, there proved to be a huge difference between theory and practice! After
the first step, when the practitioners were convinced by the core messages of our
Foundation, the second and third steps had to be taken in order to fully integrate
those aims and to implement the principles of language policy. Our staff members
had also to convince:
 The local board of every single pre-school provision, and
 The parents – every new generation of parents again!
So many evenings of parent’s meetings were organised where our staff members
discussed the social and cognitive benefits of raising children bilingually and the
successful methods of immersion and bilingual education, even for very young
children. Sometimes it was hard to overcome the prejudices of parents. Often it was
hard to convince the parents of the benefits of our models and approach. Surprisingly
enough, sometimes Dutch-speaking parents understood better and sooner the
benefits of bilingual education than Frisian-speaking parents. Not every Frisian is
proud of his or her own language and not every single couple of parents is convinced
of the benefits of raising their children in Frisian or bilingually. For many of them, the
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Dutch language is still the language of climbing the social ladder, the language you
should learn as early as possible, because that is the language in which you can get
a good job….!
I already told you that in the first years it was hard to enrol already existing local
childcare provisions in our project, and as members of our organisation. But I am
very happy that I can inform you that the situation has greatly improved over the last
five years. It is becoming much easier for our staff to convince local boards and
parents of the benefits of the bilingual or immersion approach. Sometimes childcare
institutes call our office and ask whether they can join our project.
We are convinced that the completeness of the package which we offer to the
provinsion is due to the success of the project. The package consists of:
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Strengthening of the motivation to start the Frisian medium or bilingual policy
through information and communication, for example by organising parent’s
meetings.
Developing a policy which fits well in the specific situation of each local
provision.
Coaching the practitioners in their work situation to help them with the
development and implementation of the policy.
Providing thematic materials.
An assessment in which the quality of the language policy of institutes is
evaluated.
A provincial grant for provisions which have passed this assessment.
At this moment almost ninety provisions are partner in our project. And of course we
are very happy with that result, and also glad and even proud on that achievement of
two decades of hard working. But still there is more which has to be done.
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Models applied
When a childcare provision joins our project, the local board and the practitioners can
choose which model of language use or language policy they want to implement.
In principle, and appropriately in the balanced Frisian-Dutch situation, local boards of
pre-school provisions can choose between the Frisian-only model and the bilingual
model.
In the monolingual Frisian model, in principle the Frisian language is the first and only
language that will be used for singing, reading aloud and addressing the children
during all communicative settings. For mixed language groups, this means that for
the Frisian-speaking children all the activities will be done in their mother-tongue, for
the children from Dutch speaking backgrounds this means the real immersion
approach just as we know from various bilingual situations and regions in other
countries such as Wales and Brittany, but also in Canada and the Basque Country.
However, different from the Welsh immersion approach of the Welsh medium preschool movement of Mudiad Ysgolian Mirthrein and also different from the Swedishonly approach of Folkhalsen in Finland, our Foundation is offering two models, either
the monolingual Frisian model or the bilingual model where both languages Frisian
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and Dutch are used and applied.. The local board of the provisions can choose the
monolingual model or the bilingual model. In the bilingual model, where both
languages Frisian and Dutch are used as medium of instruction, there is always a
strong emphasis on the Frisian language. This emphasis on the Frisian language is
necessary because of the dominant position of the Dutch language in society.
In the bilingual model, however, we strictly apply the One Person – One Language
system. The reason behind this principle is that children have to learn to choose
which language they have to use while addressing a certain person, and that they
should become aware of language use and the language choice related to different
persons. In conformity with evidence-based research, we are convinced that this
bilingual approach will have a positive effect on the language development of the
children.
In practice, this includes that the one teacher or practitioner always uses Frisian and
the other teacher or volunteer / help-parent uses only Dutch. We know that in
practice the One Person – One Language principle works well. Children very quickly
learn which language they have to use to which person.
In addition to the separation of person in real life, even dolls can be used to teach
children to chose the right language in communication with different virtual persons.
Many years ago we used two dolls in a pre-school setting. One doll, called Albert,
always spoke Frisian and he lived in a house made from a box of a washing
machine. In the house next door lived the other doll, a girl called Tina, and she was
Dutch-speaking. For us it was amazing how quickly the children used the right
language to the right doll. When they took Albert with them to the book corner they
used to pick up a Frisian book or told him the story in Frisian. With Tina the other way
around. Once, when I asked a pupil “Why do you use Frisian?” she looked at me and
thought (I guess) “what a silly question” and she replyed: “That is because he only
understands Frisian...!”
At the end of this section on models I must admit that the offering of two models is
also an issue of strategy. We believe that the offering of the monolingual Frisian
model as the only choice could hinder some local boards and organisations from
joining our project on language policy.
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Implementation strategies
When a local board of a provision has chosen one of both language models the work
of our foundation has not yet came to an end. Our members of staff visit the
provisions several times per year.
During these visits they advice the practitioners on:
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rich language-environment …
are there enough picture books?
are language signs used?
are there enough cd-roms with songs available?
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pedagogical climate …
is there a good atmosphere and a good structure in the
activities,
how is the interaction with the children,
is there an adequate balance between stimulation
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wherever this is needed and which is the space for the natural development of
the children?
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the way of observing the development of the children
Is the development of children observed assessed?
Is there attention for the bilingual language development?
Are parents informed if there are problems in the
development?
Are the results of observation passed to the primary
schools the children will attend afterwards?
Besides the suggestions which are given by our staff members while they visit
the classrooms, a few times per year our organisation offers in-service training
courses for practitioners. These courses last half a day or sometimes a full day.
Occasionally for a special topic an expert is invited to inform and train the
practitioners. A few topics for in-service training sessions:
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how to write, to spell Frisian correctly
This aspect of language command is of importance to the practitioners,
because they are expected to use the Frisian language in writing in
communication with the parents.
new songs for very young children
how to read a book aloud for young children
songs to move on for young children
Although all practitioners have passed an exam for childcare work in general, none of
them begin with specially-trained skills or background in bilingual education. So far,
the general pre-service training for practitioners for childcare provisions scarecely
pays attention to the aspects of bilingual education.
Nor does the pre-service training include any schooling on bilngualism or Frisian as a
subject.
The ideas and suggestions gathered and presented in the Toolkit of the MELT
project might be of great practical and therotical value for the further development of
both the in-service-training and the pre-service training.
The suggestions for information to the parents and the organisation of special
evening meeting with parents are very much in line with our practice!
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Accreditation and certification
In summary, important aspects of the work which I already mentioned, are the
following:
 convincing childcare-institutes to implement language-policy
 to give suggestions for optimizing the bilingual education
 in-service training
But that is not the end of the work of our foundation. Another important aspect of the
implementation strategy is the quality control scheme.
Our Foundation has developed a framework of aspects that determine the quality of
the childcare provisions. An accreditation committee has been installed to look after
the quality of the provisions. This committee consists of 11 persons.
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For the accreditation a checklist with several aspects is composed. The following
aspects are evaluated:
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Language-policy – application of the model chosen
Language environment
Pedagogical (language) climate
The way the development of the children is observed and assessed
Of course, the provisions are not expected to reach the wanted quality from the
beginning. Therefore the system of quality assessment is divided into three levels.
The first step is a self-assessment before the accreditation committee pays a control
visit. Each participating provision gets a check list with statements about
competences related to the 4 aspects of evaluation of the actual assessment. The
local board and the practitioners are expected to fulfil the self assessment by
reflecting on the various aspects, their own activities and the investment on the
improvement of quality of competences.
The self-assessment checklist is sent back to the office and studied carefully by the
accreditation committee. The second step is the reflection by the accreditation
committee on the report and during the on the spot visit of the committee. A
delegation of the committee comes to the provision to observe the daily practice and
to discuss their observations and opinions about the level of quality on the mentioned
aspects of the assessment. The childcare provision gets a report about the observed
quality of education. In the report to the institution, recommendations are formulated
for the improvement of the educational quality.
The third step of this quality assessment and improvement process consists of the
offer of guidance by staff members of our foundation. This guidance is free of charge.
Our staff members can help the provisions to initiate and to implement the given
recommendations so that on an assessment in the next year the quality would be of a
higher standard.
When a provision has reached the ultimate quality which is set in the language policy
statement of our organisation, the provision gets a certificate and a symbol to show
that they are an officially-recognized Frisian medium or bilingual childcare provision.
And then there will be a party organised for the children, the practitioners and the
parents, because everyone is very happy.
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Challenges for the next years
Of course a lot of work has to be done. I will give you some examples of the
challenges we face
 Training of child care worker
I have already mentioned that until now there has been hardly any attention paid
to bilingualism in the pre-service training for child care workers.
One of the aspects of our work comprises one of our staff members giving
lessons on bilingualism, bilingual education and immersion to students of all
grades of the vocational training institutes for child care workers. Please note that
this intervention by a private organisation into the formal curriculum is an
exception within the Dutch educational system. However, the final goal of this
informal intervention is to achieve a structural position within the curriculum. To
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that end, in 2009, several regional boards of pre-school provisions have signed a
covenant with both institutes for Vocational Training. As from this school year[,]
lessons on bilingualism will be included in the curriculum.
 Changing of legislative proposal
Recently, the national government sent a bill to the parliament on pre-school
education in which it is stated that the Dutch language should be used as a
medium of instruction. If this bill is passed, monolingual Frisian medium child care
provisions will become illegal.
You can imagine that we are not amused about this bill.
The provincial government, our Foundation and some political parties have
expressed their objections to this proposal. It is scarcely credible that such a
proposal has been made. Under the terms of the proposal, the Frisian language
can't be used as medium of instruction even while that same language is officially
recognised as the second language of the Netherlands! Therefore we hope that
our protest will lead to a radical modification of the bill.
 A continuous line
Another challenge is to work on a continuous line in the use of langauge in
education. Some years ago it was possible that Frisian-speaking children were
taught in the Dutch language in the childcare provisions and when they started at
primary school the Dutch and Frisian language were used. In co-operation with
the school guidance institute we work very hard on a continuous line. A good
example is the situation in the village where we are now. In co-operation with the
municipality, the school guidance institute and our Foundation[,] both the primary
schools and the childcare provisions have worked on a good language policy for
children from birth till the end of primary school. You just have seen the CD-rom
which contains information on this pilot project. Alongside the good example of
this municipality we can formulate a challenge for our Foundation to increase the
number of collaborating childcare provisions and primary schools.
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Convincing the provincial government to continue the implementation of
language policy in child care provisions.
Another challenge is to convince the provincial government that the work of our
Foundation should be continued after the formal end of our project in spring 2011.
As the president of our Foundation, I am convinced that we by then will have
achieved the set goal of 100 pre-school provisions working on a language policy.
On the basis of this success, we need to continue our work, first of all to keep all
project partners as partners and as qualified partners; and second to spread the
knowledge and the enthusiasm on bilingual up-bringing to the other 200 preschool provisions in Fryslân. To this end, the Toolkit of the MELT project which is
the topic of this seminar, can be used very well. Therefore, our Foundation is very
much dedicated to contributing to the further development and the implementation
of the Toolkit.
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