At national festivities like Koningsdag (celebrated on the 27th of April) and also during general social gatherings like Burendag (“neigbours-day”, usually the fourth Saturday in September), Dutch children (and adults) use to play traditional games like Sjoelbak, Koekhappenand Spijkerpoep.
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Language use in multilingual families during lockdown
When we all went into our first lockdown due to COVID19 last year, I published a short video for multilingual families who do NOT speak the community language at home, about how to keep up with the school or community languages during lockdown. Especially for very young children who maybe just started daycare, spending more time […]
Continue readingEn parlant du bilinguisme avec François Grosjean (podcast Tea with KBC)
– Interview with Prof. em François Grosjean par Kathryn Baxter from Tea with KBC (you can find the English transcript of this interview here) Dans un interview Prof. em. François Grosjean avec Kathryn Baxter (podcast Tea with KBC) au sujet du bilinguisme, il partage son parcours personnel, ses théories, les principes, la définition, sa mission. Même si […]
Continue readingDo multilingual children automatically become multilingual adults?
Everyone is talking about multilingualism. Until recently there were still many concerns about a multilingual upbringing – it was feared that children would not be able to speak one or the other language ‘properly’ (whatever this means!) – we now know that multilingualism has all sorts of positive effects on speaking, thinking and acting. It […]
Continue readingLanguage Portrait
Originally developed as a language awareness exercise in education, the Language Portrait is now increasingly used as a research tool investigating how speakers themselves experience and interpret their heteroglossic practices and repertoires (Busch 2018). It allows a multimodal approach as it combines discursive and presentational forms of symbolization (Langer 1948). By providing a body […]
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