Actas da - Xunta de Galicia

Durk Gorter
A Frisian language course called Fryske Taalrotonde (Frisian Round-a-bout)
has been published by the centre for educational advice in 1994. This language
course can be used for all eight grades. The course is based on the official
attainment targets for the teaching of Frisian. At present, over 70% of primary
schools in Friesland make use of the language course, although quite often only
selectively (Le Rütte 1998).
As far as Frisian language skills are concerned, the pupils’ results with regard
to oral and reading comprehension can be considered satisfactory. However,
their performance in the areas of basic (technical) reading and spelling is
insufficient and the desired level of speaking and writing remains behind (De
Jong / Riemersma 1994). In contrast, students’ command of Dutch in terms of
all abilities is good. It appeared from a comparison with a national study that
there were no significant differences between Frisian- and Dutch speaking
students attending primary schools in Friesland and Dutch students living in the
rest of the Netherlands.
An interesting development began in the school year 1997-98. It is an
experiment with trilingual primary education. Seven schools participate in the
project. The aims are to reach full Frisian-Dutch bilingualism among the
students and to boost their English language proficiency. The three languages
are taught as subject and used as medium of instruction as well. In grades 1 to 6,
50% of the teaching time is in Frisian and 50% in Dutch. In grades 7 and 8, the
division is 40% Frisian, 40% Dutch and 20% English. This implies that English
is used for two afternoons per week as a medium of instruction (Ytsma 2001).
3.3. Secondary education
There is a division at the secondary level between so-called 'basic education'
(the first 2 or 3 years) and a second stage which comprises several different
school types. The total enrolment in secondary education is around 37,000
(2000).
Since 1993 Frisian has been a compulsory subject for the basic education
stage. Almost all schools teach Frisian as compulsory subject, but only in the
first year for one hour a week. At the second stage Frisian is taught as an
optional subject. From the obligation to teach Frisian in the lower stage, a
movement onto the second stage shows a slow increase in the number of
students that take Frisian as a subject in their final exams.
The Inspectorate has evaluated the position of Frisian at secondary schools
(Inspectie van het Onderwijs 1999). It was concluded that the teaching of
Frisian as subject was weakly developed. Time expenditure as to the teaching of
Frisian was low and the quality of the Frisian lessons was low as well. Only 1%
of the schools reported to use Frisian as medium of instruction on a regular
basis, 30% did so incidentally. On the basis of the outcomes of the study, the
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