Caribbean primary school teachers receive training in reading promotion
This year, Biblionef, together with Stichting Lezen, started training primary school teachers in reading promotion in the Dutch Caribbean. Trainer Bianca Versteeg has already been to Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and Sint Eustatius. Next year, the islands of Bonaire and Saba will follow.
‘During the training, we first cover language and reading development in children learning a foreign language in a multilingual context. We discuss and practice reading activities with the teachers – from junior to senior years – to encourage the children to read more, and what the teachers can do during the reading lesson,’ says Versteeg. The children learn to read in Dutch even though it is a foreign language for them. Versteeg: ‘Depending on the island, they mainly speak Papiamento or Papiamentù and English but also Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, French and Creole. At school, they learn Dutch. This is an exam language but also a language that opens doors if you want to study further,’ she says. The classroom reading lesson in Dutch is, therefore, both a lesson to learn the language and to see how fun and important it is to read. ‘The teachers learn what can be done to promote reading, how to work with the children on phonics and vocabulary and let the children experience success while reading. In this way, they take small steps in learning Dutch. The activities can be carried out in the children’s own language or in Dutch. Our starting point is the children’s multilingualism. The language development of multilingual children is different from that of monolingual children but it is an added value to be able to draw on multiple languages.’
A wide book collection
Teachers learn the importance of working with a variety of books, so not only reading books but also picture books, informative books, easy books, comic books and books on a particular subject. ‘In some schools, appropriate books were not available,’ Versteeg says. ‘By talking about the books suitable for certain target groups, teachers can be more conscious about the collection of books at school and ask more consciously for what they need. Now there is sometimes little choice.’
The latter is fortunately improving. Biblionef has provided children’s books in the classroom in several languages (Dutch, English, Papiamento and Spanish) and Bianca Versteeg’s training gives teachers practical tips to increase the pleasure of reading. ‘We practice the teaching methods in the training. The teachers then experience how much fun it is. The great thing is that many teachers started trying the activities in the classroom right away, and saw that it works.’
