Best Practices

"www.meertalen.nl" by the Dutch Public Library Association

What is the main purpose of this site?
On the site you can find a data base of projects and products in the field of linguistics and reading promotion. This site is build for intermediaries who work or live with children whose mother tongue is another then Dutch. These children live in the Netherlands or Flanders and speak Dutch as a second (or third) language. The intermediaries work or study in different fields such as: libraries, primary and secondary schools, bookstores, day care centres, children’s shelters, asylum seekers centre’s, teacher training colleges, etc. Also parents who raise their children in their own language or bilingual are more then welcome to visit this site.

To navigate through the webpage  you find the buttons linking to the different categories:
- News
- Products & Materials
- National organisations and institutions
- Projects & Methods
- Tips & Links
- Colofon

Under Products & Materials you can find all kinds of multilingual materials which are available for the public market in the Netherlands. Books, picture books, music, poetry, songs for children from 0 to 18 years. Some of the primary materials are bilingual, but most of them are made in one single language other than Dutch. For intermediaries there is background information such as secondary literature about items like multilingualistic, intercultural education, reading promotion, foreign languages of immigrants in the Netherlands, teaching materials for primary and secondary schools, products which are specially made for reading programs for immigrants, etc. In this database you can also search with a search engine.

National organisations and institutions: Here you find institutions which make teaching materials and give counselling and support to all the intermediaries for whom this site is made.

Under the button Projects & Methods you can find reading programs. They are developed for immigration children who have to learn Dutch as a second language and who are serious linguistically deprived. These reading programs are made in the languages of the largest group of immigrants such as Turkish, Arabic, Berber and Papiament. All the materials related to these programs are accessible in the products & materials data base of this site.

Under Tips you can find several bookshops in the Netherlands and abroad which specialise in a single language such as Chines, Moluccan, German, Finnish, etc. Here you can also find Links to other sites which are quite handy if you want to know something about multilinguistic issues or reading programs.
In the Colophon are the main data and a possibility to e-mail remarks and questions.

In this database there are at this moment 750 products in 37 languages, specified in 14 types of products (book, CD, music etc.). There are 48 links and 33 multilingual projects and methods.

Sources: "www.meertalen.nl" - Data Bank Multilingual Materials
Hannie Humme (Bureau Leesbevordering & Educatie, Office for reading promotion & education, Hilversum, Netherlands)

CONTACT:
Hannie Humme
Bureau Leesbevordering & Educatie
Office for reading promotion & education
Hilversum, Netherlands
hannie.humme@planet.nl