A digital learning environment to support multilingual education in primary schools

There is a strong growth in the diversity of languages pupils bring into the classroom in Flemish education. On the one hand, due to immigration waves a part of the pupils often speaks another language than Dutch, in their home as well as in their direct surroundings (Ceuleers, 2008; Van den Branden & Verhelst, 2009). On the other hand, a lot of pupils acquire a basic knowledge in English, for example through their contact with television, internet and computer games (e.g. Kuppens, 2010). However, this linguistic diversity is seldomly addressed as didactic capital and often even excluded from the learning process because it is considered as a barrier to learning Dutch. Nevertheless, national as well as international attention is given to the value of multilingualism (e.g. Council of the European Union, 2008, 21 November; Smet, 2011, 22 July; Standaert, 2008). Especially in the present globalizing world, educational practitioners are challenged to work with the diversity of languages we are faced with. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) holds a valuable opportunity to work on multilingualism in the classroom (e.g. Pederson, 1986). However, how digital learning environments can support the learning of languages and knowledge acquisition in these languages remains unclear (Liu, Moore, Graham, & Lee, 2003). Besides, ICT-integration stays rather low in Flemish education (Tondeur, van Braak, & Valcke, 2007; van Braak et al., 2010; van Braak, Tondeur, & Valcke, 2004). More useful learning materials are necessary for teachers to give a full place to ICT in their classroom practice (van Braak et al., 2010). In the light of the 21st century skills, and more specifically the skills that focus on digital literacy, learning through problem solving and positively dealing with diversity (Voogt & Pareja Roblin, 2010), we propose the development of E-Validiv, a multilingual digital learning environment. This is part of the larger Validiv-project, which aims at the valorization of the linguistic diversity in today’s schools through the development of different tools.