Kurdish added to the list of mother tongues in Zurich
ZURICH,— The Education Bureau of the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland has announced in a written statement last week that schools in the canton would provide language courses for all the tongues spoken in the country, including Kurdish.
The Bureau's statement, titled “Information on mother-tongue education and culture”, drew attention to the multicultural structure of the Canton of Zurich, and reminded that the Directorate of Education provided “mother tongue and culture” lessons for 10 thousand students in the canton.
The statement put emphasis on the importance of education in mother tongue for the mental and cultural development of children and youths, and listed the points under the title of “benefits of mother tongue and culture lessons”;
* One who has a command of his/her mother-tongue learns the second language German and other foreign languages easier.
* The command of the mother-tongue helps children establish communication with their families and relatives easier.
* Knowing a second language provides advantage in the professional life.
* Mother tongue and culture lessons strengthens self-confidence, increases world knowledge, and affects the learning performance at school.
* Children gain a better understanding of the culture of their parents' homelands and of their situation in Switzerland, which helps them improve their ability to adapt themselves to living with different cultures and to the society they live in.
The statement continued with the following suggestions to families as to how they can help the improvement of their children's mother-tongue;
*Speak to your children in the language you naturally speak and command best.
*Avoid intermingling German with your mother-tongue while speaking to your child. Keep speaking your mother-tongue even if your children answers in German. For a certain period of time, your child may speak only Germanwww.Ekurd.net despite understanding his/her mother-tongue. You should still continue to speak your mother language so that your child keeps learning it by listening, he/she will definitely start to speak that language later.
* Support your children as they learning their mother-tongue by telling stories, listening and reading to them and singing nursery rhymes.
* Establish an environment where your children can speak their mother-tongue without help (for example during a holiday, with relatives...)
* Establish regular communication with the teachers of your children's mother tongue and culture lessons.
According to the statement, children in the Canton of Zurich will be provided with mother tongue and culture lessons for 2-4 hours a week. They will attend lessons after the school or on Saturdays, and get marks between 1 and 6 which will affect the grade point average as well.
The statement ended with the listing of the following languages to be taught at schools in the canton; Kurdish, Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Finnish, French, Greek, Turkish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Serbian, Croatian, Flemish, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian, Tamil and Czech language.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, firatnews.com
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/mi ... rld633.htm
