Two young children reading a book
Two young children reading a book

How Dutch language develops in 5-7 year old early-bilingual primary school pupils

A comparison between pupils at partial immersion schools and early foreign language acquisition (VVTO) schools

Dutch language proficiency is related to a child’s performance at school. How will Dutch language development be affected by a minimum of nine hours of English language immersion from kindergarten onwards? And how does partial immersion in English affect Dutch literacy skill development? Are there linguistic benefits for such language learners, as is suggested by some studies, or is their language development comparable to children at early foreign language acquisition schools in terms of vocabulary and language awareness? This study aims to answer these questions by following school pupils’ language development in both groups between age 5 to 7 years.

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