Tweetalig Kleuter- en Lager Onderwijs in Friesland, Een Beschouwing van de Stand van Zaken

Abstract

Since August 1980 both Frisian and Dutch have been compulsory subjects in the primary schools in the province of Friesland. This article describes the present situation. It begins with a descrip-tion of the motives for bilingual education in Friesland and relates them to the typology of Fishman. This appears to clarify the position of regional languages and dialects in infant and primary education. In the beginning of the eighties the position of the Frisian language in both schooltypes was investigated. About 45% of the teachers of infant groups use Dutch as a medium of instruction in almost all activities, and about 10% does nearly everything in Frisian. The other 45% use both languages; we don't know in which way or proportion. It appears that in musical activities more than one language is used. The other regional dialects of the children are hardly ever used at all. This last statement is at this moment also true for primary schools. Frisian is a subject in almost every school (86%) and a substantial part of the schools (29%) uses it as a medium of instruction. But looking at the desirability of goals as indicated by the schools, it becomes clear that most schools still don't expect their pupils to be able to write Frisian, though most of them say that their main motive for teaching Frisian is to prepare their pupils for functioning in the bilingual culture of Friesland. Too often it seems that the schools fail in respect to at least the Frisian aspects of culture in Friesland. In other words, it may be said that partial and complete bilingu-alism are not yet found in all the infant and primary schools of Friesland. Hopefully this portrait of the state of affairs will turn out to be an instant photo: things are still developing.