Blog

The home language is a key, a bridge, and a mirror

The home language is a key, a bridge, and a mirror. At a conference for primary education in the Netherlands last week, we explained these metaphors in our workshop. In this blog, we will show what we mean by the metaphors and how you can find them in practice.

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How we talk about language matters: ‘Your’ language, ‘your’ country

We tend to think that people’s language is the language spoken in the country where they were born. And, to a certain extent, that is true. In many cases, that language is strongly connected to who we are: our family and friends, memories, dreams, and knowledge. But is that the only language that is ours? Is that the only country that is ours?

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The PISA report shook up the Netherlands – what to do?

The PISA report shows that the Netherlands have declined in all subjects. This means lower scores for reading, mathematics, and science. This decline was stronger for students with a migration backgrounds, than for non-migrant students. This shows that the performance gap became bigger.

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Migrant families at a language crossroad

In this post, we show how migrant families sit at a language crossroad: to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture, while preserving their own home language and cultural identity. Multilingualism, an already widespread phenomenon, can be a key to supporting families in the migration process. It can also help enrich contexts for action and interaction.

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The value of multilingual communication

Communication comes to a halt when monolingualism is demanded. Encouraging classroom participation – no matter the language used – empowers newcomers to share their knowledge and to feel safe in their classroom.

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3 benefits of welcoming home languages into our classrooms

Many educators are uncertain about the benefits of translanguaging – the use of home languages when teaching. We’ve read more than 90 publications on this topic and the results are clear: translanguaging has multiple benefits. Here we present 3 ways in which this approach could help multilingual children with a migrant background.

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The Multi-STEM project in 2.5 minutes!

Project leader Elma Blom, together with the help of Zahraa Attar and partner NEMO, explains in 2.5 minutes exactly what Multi-STEM does. We are a 6-year research project and have been working closely with our 31 (practice) consortium partners from the very beginning. Would you also like to know what Multi-STEM does? Watch it here.

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Two university students visit a science museum with multilingual families

In this post, two bachelor’s students share their experiences on visiting one of our partner museums with multilingual families. Their experiences give insight into the feelings and thoughts of these families, who are not in the habit of going to science museums in their free time. Curious about what happened? Read the post to find out!

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Multilingual Multiplication: What if using another language is the solution?

A struggle I’ve had as a teacher of newcomers is that students sometimes have difficulty finding the words to show me what they know. Allowing students to translanguage –to use whatever language they feel comfortable expressing themselves in–has been a great way for me as a teacher to enable students to learn at a level that fits them best.

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