Professional paper
An Approach to the Language and Culture of Origin in Practice in the Netherlands
Ljiljana Ranić-Podunajec
; Yugoslav supplementary school, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract
Some considerations of the value of preserving migrant children's mother tongue and culture of origin for their entire personality development are offered in the introduction. Next, the Law on Education and Personality Development in the languages of the nationalities living in SR Croatia, which is a reflection of the tolerance and flexibility of Yugoslav language policies, is compared to the corresponding Dutch legislation, introducing (in 1987) an adverse novelty: a reduction in the number of supplementary education (OETC) classes, and thus bringing about an elimination from the curriculum of some subjects pertaining to foreign children's culture of origin. The author underlines the importance of OETC as the main factor in the formation of an imigrant pupil's personality. One of the key roles of OETC is seen in its enabling the pupil for an objective evaluation of the inherited as well as newly adopted (and/or forced) forms of socio-cultural life. There follows an account of the author's teaching practice with 24 Yugoslav pupils, who were enabled under her guidance (in the 1981–1984 period) to transfer their newly acquired knowledge from regular classes to supplementary ones (or vice versa). This example shows that the two kinds of instruction can complement each other very successfully, provided co-operation between (Dutch and Yugoslav) teachers is established and if a strong enough pupils' motivation is developed. In closing, a short history of OETC, that is Yugoslav supplementary education in the Netherlands, is presented.
Keywords
mother tongue; culture; supplementary education; the Netherlands
Hrčak ID:
128672
URI
Publication date:
31.12.1987.
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