In this multicultural society, many children struggle with language deficiency even before they start to go to school. Since the critical period for acquiring a language is in the first years of life (Dekkers & Verrips, 2002, page 26), several studies focus on the direct language stimulation of zero to three-year olds by means of language-enriching games etc. However, the TS03 project aims to deepen the non-verbal and verbal creativity of the caretakers of this target group in pre-school care, based on artistic skills specific to the Specific Teacher Training Program Drama and the Drama/Word program.
The TS03 project starts from the hypothesis that stimulating an artistic approach to language among the caregivers will have a positive effect on the language development of the zero to three-year olds.
The project aims to investigate to what extent stimulating the non-verbal and verbal creativity of the caretakers has a positive effect on the language acquisition of young children. Secondly, how the lingual transfer between caregivers and children can best be realized. And thirdly to what extent stimulating the abovementioned creativity among caregivers will offer a different, non-linguistic input to the Dutch language to non-native children.
