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

status even if the grounds are somewhat different. Both languages are used in teaching, as
tools for meaningful communication.
According to Swain (1981) and Hicky (2001) early immersion programs works the best when
children at home speak the majority, dominant language while they learn the minority
language at pre-school, care centre or kindergarten. The second language is offered in a
playful way, while the high status and social position of dominant home language ensures
that the development of the home language is not interrupted.
In literature definitions of immersion are focused on school settings and not on the preschool
facilities. Some parts of the definitions and descriptions in this section are also
applicable to pre-primary school education. Even though there are no different subjects (like
mathematics, history etc.) offered in pre-school provisions, the are many pre-schools with a
focused didactic curriculum. Pre-school practitioners offer different activities (songs, stories,
games, nursery rhymes, creative activities etc.) in a different form of language as the home
language. Some practitioners have to decide how to deal with the instruction language in
those different activities and which immersion method they want to use. Especially when it
concerns a bi- or multilingual pre-school setting a conscious language choice is important. It
is also important in monolingual settings with multilingual children. The MELT project
partners developed a Guide containing examples of linguistic activities and theories, to
increase the skills of practitioners, who are working in a minority pre-school setting with
children from 0 to 4 years. And of course to provide young children with a strong
educational foundation, enabling them to go on and continue to progress with their
multilingual skills.
4.3 Continuous multilingual development
Children who are born in the 21st Century, will grow up as global citizens. The world has
become smaller, children have more knowledge of the world around them. Communication
with people from other cultures with other languages is much easier than ever before. The
awareness about a multilingual upbringing and education is greater than in the 20th
Century. Multilingual speaking children are ‘normal,’ due to the increased immigration and
more ‘mixed-cultural’ marriages. Monolingual people are becoming rare exceptions. In the
next sections strategies on how to raise a child multilingual, the importance of the minority
language and the conditions for a continuous multilingual development are described.
4.3.1 Multilingual language acquisition strategies
Different researchers show the benefits/ advantages and disadvantages of multilingualism
and there have been studies about the best method to raise a multilingual and multicultural
child. One of the recommendations nowadays is: start as early as possible to educate a child
multilingual. But there are different approaches that allows the child to develop the
consciousness of two or more language systems more quickly than others. Which strategy is
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