Petitie tegen de stopzetting van de 6 meertalige onderwijsproject

#12: -  

 Now, I do not understand such a fuss about stoping this project! It takes a lot of money that could be spent on regular eduction of all the children in Belgium! My children have heard/spoken three languages from their first day and not in school but at home. I have decided to leave my country for whatever reasons I might have, it is not up to my host country to maintain my cultural roots! First of all, the children of well educated parents will always speak their mother/father tongue properly, no matter what project this country offers. The others would not be able to go further with eductiona in their own country either!!! Those whose parents are not educated (enough) do not get a chance. That's it. Cruel but true! Look around you, how many Flemish/Walloon families from "lower classes" don't seee their kids get through technical or general high school? They don't even manage to learn a  profession (plumber or similar) because their parents aither have no school or are just of a poor intellectual capacity. Who helps them???? And last, but not least, why not than investing in Arabic education, Greek, Russian..... etc???? Why only Spanish, Italian of Turkish????

I am sorry if this is offensing anyone, but this is life! Some people do have children even though they cannot offer them any (educational) support. Those children would not have a big chance anywhere in the world, but I gues will have at least some love from their parents. If all those people stayed in their countries, what school would the kids go to?

#180: prosper - Re: Meertaligheid 

 Bravo! En wie gaat dan Vlaamse laaggeschoolde families helpen om hun kinderen door TSO of ASO te krijgen? Is er ook een project bestemd voor deze kinderen? Of mogen ze niet de kans krijgen want er zijn maar centen nodig voor de andertalige kinderen die hun moedertaal ook thuis kunnen leren?

#128: -  

 Et vous, cher monsieur Lecuit, ne pensez-vous pas que notre pays ets trop cuit si on investit dans des projets pareils au lieu d'investir dans l'éducation de nos propres enfants? Qui aident les démunis de Liège? Les "classes basses" wallonnes? Tant de parents qui ne sont pas en situation de stimuler leurs propres enfants belges, les pousser vers la meilleure éducation, vers les études... pensez-vous à ceux là? Je ne vois aucun projet prévu pour les petits Wallons et Flamands qui ont des parents non-(ou pas)scolarisés ? Non, franchement, il vaut mieux aider les autres, nos propres gens ne comptent pas!

#184: -  

 En kon je geen Spaans met jouw Spaanstalige ouder leren???? Wat den je dat met tweetalige Belgen gebeurt???? Mijn kinderen hebben met mij Frans gesproken, met hun papa hebben ze altijd het Nederlands gesproken. Nu zijn ze perfect tweetalig (en we wonen in Antwerpen waar ze geen Frans op straat kunnen horen!) zonder ooit van een duur project te kunnen genieten! Met een goede IQ en de steun van jouw ouders zou je ook in ASO zijn, hoor.

#229: Maria - Re:  

 

Het valt me op dat commentaren 226, 227 en 229, zij het in drie verschillende talen, blijkbaar door eenzelfde persoon geschreven zijn... Eigenaardig. Aan die lieve Maria, die zich al dan niet ook nog als boze heks opdient: open misschien je eigen petitie... en zie dan of je ook aan 4600 ondertekenaars komt in plaats van te parasiteren op anderen. Fair play is ook een kwaliteit, hoor, maar blijkbaar niet aan u besteed.

ab çelişki i,çinde türkiye ye anadilde eğitim diye bastıran ab ülkesi belçikayı kınıyorum

#229: Maria - Re:  

 Het is te zien dat dat meisje een grotere IQ heeft dan veel volwassenen dat het nodig vinden om naar zo n petitie onnozele commentaren te schrijven.Nammelijk, ze is in tweede jaar ASO latijn.

Sommigen denken het recht te hebben om opinies te geven zonder kennis van zakken...

#231: Jean-Marie - Maria 

 totaal akkord!

#228: Maria - Re:  

 Er lopen veel gefrusteerde mensen in nons kleine land!

Beste Maria,

Je kinderen zijn perfect tweetalig! Namelijk nederlands en frans. En waar gaan ze perfect Frans leren schrijven? Op school toch...
Vandaar dat dit project wel goed was. De kinderen leerden ook hun thuistaal schrijven.
Je conclusie is nogal kort door de bocht: je kan jouw situatie niet vergelijken met de kinderen van dit project.
Het was ook een aanwinst voor België als je globalisatie in rekening brengt.
Die kinderen zouden naast Nederlands, Engels, Frans ook hun eigen taal kunnen schrijven en dat is enkel goed voor de Belgische economie...namelijk voor internationale contacten...

Ik kan er van meespreken: ik werk veel samen met Spanje en de reden dat ze met ons werken is omdat ik mijn plan trek in het Spaans.
Ik heb het Spaans niet geleerd via dit project maar via avondschool. Vandaar dat mijn Spaans maar bric à brac is...

groeten

#227: Boze heks - Re: Re: Me

Waarom tekent u deze petitie als u toch enkel achterlijke commentaren kan geven?

Ojala que esta peticion tenga un resultado positivo..todos tenemos que tener mas posibilidades de educacion.

Men moet dus precies weten waarover men het heeft. Via de eigen taal onderandere....het vertrouwen van "vreemde" mensen winnen in een niet zo gemakkelijk gebied, vaak in moeilijke omstandigheden. Daarbij werken aan het Nederlands, vaak in een beginstadium....en ook werken aan de geleidelijke afbouw van die vreemde taal. Het gaat dus om het Nederlands en...ja, hoe meer talen je kent, hoe beter me dunkt.

señor ministro esta en la mira del mundo

Sidney Pulgarin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/12/ellen-bialystok-bilingual-brains-more-healthy
Ellen Bialystok: Bilingual brains are more healthy

Looking at Alzheimer's patients, Canadian neuroscientist Ellen Bialystok finds that people who speak two languages cope significantly better with the disease

Neuroscientist Ellen Bialystok says bilingual children have enhanced cognitive abilities. Above, Urdu language class in east London. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Ellen Bialystok is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research has shown that speaking two or more languages on a regular basis from a young age can have a positive effect on the brain. Not only does it enhance cognitive abilities, being bilingual can also delay symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Bialystok, 62, is a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. Last year, she was awarded a $100,000 Killam prize for her contributions to the social sciences.

What was the first indication in your research that bilingualism had neurological benefits?

It came from children's ability to understand the structure of language as well as the meaning. This is called metalinguistic knowledge, and it's the key to using language for learning, for literacy, for thinking, for logic. To assess how far along they are in metalinguistic development, we would ask children between the ages of five and nine to judge whether or not a sentence is grammatically correct, however nonsensical it may be. The example I use is: "Apples grow on noses." It's very hard for kids to say that's OK grammatically: they want to tell you that apples don't grow on noses. We found that bilingual children were better able to do this.

Why?

It relates to the essential problem of bilingualism. When a bilingual person is speaking in one language, research shows that the other language is active in his or her mind. That creates a problem: how do you select from the language you need without this other active language getting in the way? In my view, you incorporate a cognitive system called the executive control system, whose job it is to resolve competition and focus attention. If you're bilingual, you are using this system all the time, and that enhances and fortifies it. And that's why bilingual children can say that "Apples grow on noses" is said the right way: they are accustomed to resolving the conflict between form and meaning.

Metalinguistic superiority aside, what other advantages are there?

The cognitive enhancement across the life span of a bilingual person is quite dramatic. It turns out that something as ordinary as speaking a couple of languages reconfigures the brain network in a way that positively affects certain things that brains do.

Can you give an example?

We did a study at the Baycrest geriatric centre in Toronto in which we identified 200 clear cases of Alzheimer's disease and looked at the patients' backgrounds to see if they were mono- or bilingual. Then we looked at how old they were when the family noticed something was wrong and when they were formally diagnosed. In both cases the bilinguals were significantly older, by about four years. We repeated that study using another 200 patients and got identical results.

What conclusion did you arrive at?

It was possible that bilingualism protected the brain and they didn't get Alzheimer's disease as soon, but I never thought that. We did a second study with 20 monolinguals and 20 bilinguals, all about 75 years old. They had all been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and they were at exactly the same cognitive level, so you would expect them to have the same level of damage in the medial-temporal cortex. But when we looked at their brains, we found that the bilinguals had significantly more damage than the monolinguals. They had more advanced Alzheimer's but they were functioning at the same level. That's the advantage: they could cope with the disease better.

Do you have to be bilingual from a young age to experience cognitive and health-related benefits?

It's very hard to know. My view is that late-life language learning is probably beneficial, not because of bilingualism but because learning a language is a stimulating mental activity and a good way to exercise your brain.

Are the benefits cumulative? If you speak three or more languages fluently, will you be three or more times better off?

There are hints of evidence supporting the idea that three languages are better than two. But here's the problem. The vast majority of bilinguals did not choose to become bilingual because they had a talent for languages: they became bilingual because life required them to. Trilingualism is usually more of a choice, a luxury option associated with intelligence, language talent and education. The benefits are more difficult to measure.

In Britain, we are notoriously bad at learning foreign languages because we have English to rely on. Does this mean that nations that do not speak a globally recognised language have healthier brains?

That's the logical prediction but the reality is much more complicated. When we do our research we go to great pains to make sure that the people in the two groups are the same on everything else we can think of measuring. When you move across nations, you have national differences in wealth, education, social circumstances, health, etc, that contribute to healthy ageing, for example, so finding a difference between two nations is very difficult.

Should curriculum setters take notice?

Language should be a central part of the curriculum but not because bilingualism postpones the onset of dementia: any intellectually engaged activity requiring intense involvement will keep your brain healthy. Learning other languages is important because it helps you understand other people, other cultures, other ways of thinking. Even if it didn't change your brain, there are just so many benefits.

T.a.v. Pascal Smet

Geachte minister

Met deze beslissing gaat u in tegen overtuigend wetenschappelijk bewijs dat meertalig onderwijs en meertalige vorming emancipatorisch zijn voor elk individu. De terugverdieneffecten voor een maatschappij staan daarom ook buiten kijf. Het komt daarenboven de verstandhouding in elke maatschappij ten goede.
Dient u met deze beslissing geen bijzonder kortzichtige politiek-elektorale agenda?

(Getekend in eigen naam - Dirk De Zutter)

dialoog dialoog dialoog!

Gedurende vele jaren prees men van hogerhand dit initiatief om zijn positieve bijdrage, om zijn verdiensten. Wetenschappelijk bewezen. Omdat men op zoek is naar geld en besparingen...treft men groepen die niet zo in de kijker lopen. Dit sluit niet uit dat men op andere terreinen zwakkere mensen, met niet de grote aanhang, ook kan blijven steunen of......gewoon ook in de spaarpot zal duwen. Jammer voor dit bicultureel project. Het gaat om Brussel.

Groot gelijk.
Hoe meer talen hoe meer begrip in alle opzichten

İstanbul

We need to open up the language barriers. Keep this project alive!!!