Rutu FoundationTranslanguaging: the answer to 21st century multilingual classrooms?
Posted on January 26, 2016
When children are not allowed to use their home language in the classroom, they lose an important strategy to help them learn. When I was invited to give a presentation for about 150 teachers who teach Dutch as a second language in Amsterdam, I decided to introduce the concept of ‘translanguaging’. To…
Bilingual math books presented to teacher training institute in Suriname
Posted on November 24, 2015
The Rutu Foundation presented the bilingual math method ‘Maths, Naturally!’ to the director of the teacher training institute Paramaribo in Suriname. From the national newspaper De Ware Tijd: “With this math book it is expected that children – especially those living in the Interior – improve their math skills and have more fun…
What does your mother tongue mean to you?
Posted on November 1, 2015
We asked some multilingual friends (and their children) to explain what their mother tongue means to them and what it feels like to speak more than one language.
Aroha (14 years):
To me, being bilingual is like playing a game of Memory with your mind. Except instead of an image on your card, you have a word in one of the languages you speak. Sometimes you find the matching card immediately. At other times it takes a lot longer. And you just keep staring at the card in your hand. It is all you can see and you just can’t manage to find the other. Which, as you can imagine, is very frustrating….
Meertaligheid en Onderwijs/ Multilingualism & Education
