A holistic approach to multilingualism in secondary schools in Fryslân (the Netherlands)

This talk discusses how a holistic approach to multilingualism (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018) can be used in secondary education in the bilingual province of Fryslân, the Netherlands. In this education context, several languages play a role: the national majority language Dutch, the regional language Frisian, foreign languages which are taught in school such as English, French and German, but also a growing number of migrant languages. In Frisian secondary education, the focus often lies on Dutch and English, and they are offered separate from each other. With the Holi-Frysk 2.0 project, we aim to make Frisian and other languages more visible and to stimulate a holistic approach towards multilingualism. This talk will present our experiences in the Holi-Frysk 2.0 project. In the project, a design-based intervention is developed which aims to create more positive attitudes from teachers and pupils towards (learning) Frisian and multilingualism. The execution of the project is presented, from the intervention-design to the inspirational study meetings. The intervention that is developed in the project consists of lesson activities, which the teachers and researchers develop in close collaboration. These activities aim, especially but not exclusively, to improve the pupils' attitudes towards Frisian and to incorporate the use of Frisian and other languages in other school subjects. This talk will present some examples of the activities, as well as the experiences of the teachers in the design-phase and implementation-phase. Finally, we will present a first look at the effect of the project on the attitudes towards multilingualism and Frisian of pupils, which are measured by means of questionnaires.