KORAAL - Nederlands met een verhaal: Stimulating reading and language acquisition for young learners

Belgium and the Caribbean Netherlands are united by a fellow cause: at the centre and periphery of the EU, in Brussels and on the island of St Eustatius, children are learning Dutch as a Foreign L...

Belgium and the Caribbean Netherlands are united by a fellow cause: at the centre and periphery of the EU, in Brussels and on the island of St Eustatius, children are learning Dutch as a Foreign Language (NVT). At the moment, learning resources for young NVT learners are scarce and children of colour are underrepresented. Additionally, teachers want to stimulate reading and find the right didactic approach. We aim to create NVT reading resources and develop an accompanying didactic approach.

First, we want to CREATE reading resources that are suitable for young learners of Dutch as a Foreign Language with teams from the Caribbean-Netherlands and Belgium during working visits, one in every partner country, through co-creation. Then, we will use AI to MULTIPLY the reading resources, collaborating virtually in the process. Finally, we will IMPLEMENT our resources further through a tailor-made evidence-based didactic approach that will be developed during a week-long working visit.

The results of this project will be reading resources for young learners of Dutch which will be made available for free use on our website. These resources will have been scaled up through the use of AI, which we will report on during a webinar (in English) that is accessible to all educators who are interested in using AI. We will also draft and make available a manual for stimulating and teaching reading with young learners, useful for language teachers anywhere, in Dutch, English and French.