Multilingual Early Language Transmission (MELT) - Mercator ...

The Foundation SFBO was founded in 1989 as the Foudation “Stifting Pjutteboartersplak”.
This foundation started with an explicit language policy and which consists of two goals:
a) to provide Frisian medium and bilingual services for the pre-school sector;
b) to establish a Frisian-speaking environment for young children.
The Foundation establishes Frisian medium playgroups; they enroll both Frisian and Dutchspeaking
children. In 2005, the ‘Stifting Pjutteboartersplak’ was changed into ‘Stifting
Frysktalige Berneopfang,’ which is responsible for the running of bilingual (Frisian and Dutch)
or monolingual (Frisian) playgroups. In 1999, the Provincial Government issued a grant to
promote the use of Frisian at playgroups and day care centres and to upgrade the
educational work at pre-school level to a professional level. For the improvement of the
professional quality of playgroup and day care practitioners a Quality Framework has been
developed consisting of the elements: language command, didactics, the language
environment, and language policy. Through guidance and visitations the pre-school
provisions are encouraged to increase their qualities in these fields. A commission visits the
provisions and judges whether these have translated and implemented the criteria
sufficiently. Organisations are given the opportunity to develop and implement their policy
in three phases. Every phase has a different character:
Phase 1: Orientation; the organization starts developing a language policy and
awarenessraising amongst the parents.
Phase 2: The language policy is implemented.
Phase 3: In this phase language policy and implementation are perfectioned.
As a result of this process SFBO issues certificates to playgroups and day care centres that
meet the set criteria. A playgroup and day care centre that receives a certificate obtains an
extra grant from the provincial government.
The project was evaluated in 2006. The main conclusions were that the professional
qualification of the practicioners has increased greatly, that the qualification structure is
transparent and on a level comparable with other provisions in Fryslân. On the basis of these
results the provincial administration has granted a permanent financial structure for Frisian
medium pre-school provisions.
In January 2011, the target of the Province of Fryslân has been achieved. On December 31 st ,
2010 there were at least one hundred Frisian playgroups and day cares, as agreed with
SFBO. In the future, the number of Frisian medium and bilingual nurseries and playgroups
will increase by at least 10 provisions per year.
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