July 20, 2022
Over the last couple of months, HLE Network has been running the campaign “The Joy of Reading in the Heritage Language.” With this campaign we are raising awareness about the importance of reading for pleasure in the heritage language by multilingual children. Our promotional campaign includes information about different types of motivation, and it outlines numerous scientifically-backed benefits of reading in the home language. We have FAQs for multilingual children (for example, “Shouldn’t I read in Dutch? I need that for school”) and we ran a book recommendation contest for multilingual children. We also created a toolbox that shares tips about how to motivate children, lists ideas about various possible reading activities, and offers a list of digital libraries and online reading resources.
What are the heritage language programs of Eindhoven doing to promote reading? Some have come up with creative activities related to reading and literature! We learned about some examples of fun heritage language literary activities from Francofilous, the Polish School of Eindhoven, and the Romanian School in Eindhoven.
French School Comics
When it comes to reading, comic books are known to be fun and attractive for children. The organizers of the French program for primary school children “Francofilous” have started collecting some French-language comic books from parents. These comics in French are called “BD” for bandes dessinées. Examples of BD comics are The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix. Their team also plans on raising money to buy more recent comics. They hope to be able to organize an activity for French children in autumn 2022, with visits from comics authors. Good luck, Francofilous, with raising the funds for your comics project!
Polish School Poetry Festival
Reading does not only have to mean reading books: it can also have to do with poetry and theater. Polska Szkoła Eindhoven participated in the 2022 Wierszowisko festival which was held in Wijchen on June 5. During this festival each year, the different Polish HL programs in the Netherlands come together for a day filled with poetry and theater. Part of it includes a poetry reciting contest. The theme this year was “There is a little math in poetry.” Fourteen children from the Polish School of Eindhoven wrote and performed a rhyming story about a family of geometric figures where the rectangle was unhappy because he wished to be a square. The performance ended with the rectangle being proud of who he is and not wanting to change anymore, since a rectangle is kind of similar to a square anyway. Polska Szkoła Eindhoven received an award for their fun performance. Congratulations!
Romanian School Book Collection and “Boovie” Book Trailer Competition The Romanian School in Eindhoven (Școala Românească) officially launched the Romanian section of the International Children’s Book Collection in the Eindhoven library on Saturday, July 9, 2022. This achievement was celebrated in the library with lots of activities for the children and parents. The event started off with a few welcoming words by Vlad Niculescu-Dinca as chairman of the Romanian School Eindhoven, whereafter beloved children's book author, Ioana Chicet-Macoveiciuc (a.k.a. the Urban Princess) organized an activity. In the afternoon, the Romanian School Eindhoven’s book-trailer submission for the Boovie festival “Cei 8 teribili” was screened. Boovie is a festival organized for Romanian pupils in Romania and abroad, which motivates students to read by having them take part in a book-trailer competition. Boovie captures the essence of novels for teenage life in all eras and parts of the world. Congratulations to the Romanian school for these fantastic activities to promote reading in the heritage language. How inspiring that these HL programs have organized such interesting literary activities. It is wonderful that children are stimulated to read in their heritage language through these original and engaging projects. Does your HL program in Eindhoven/Brainport have something to share with the HLE Network community about what you are doing to foster a love for reading? If so, please let us know!