Woordkeuze Marokkaans-Arabisch en Modern Standaard Arabisch in het Eerste Jaar van het Programma Opstap-Opnieuw voor Marokkaanse Kinderen

The two-year Opstap-Opnieuw programme is a programme to stimulate children aged 4-6 years in their cognitive, social and linguistic development. The 'Arabic' version of the programme, which is directed at Moroccan children, consists of texts written in Modern Standard Arabic and tapes containing recordings in Moroccan Arabic and Berber. The article investigates whether the words used in the first year of the programme link up with the proficiency of Moroccan children in their mother tongue and whether the language choice based on which the programme is developed is a suitable one. The outcomes of the analyses show that the lexical level of the programme is relatively high for the target children but not too high. Furthermore it shows that the multilingual language choice of the programme seems acceptable although the original choice in favour of the Moroccan Arabic dialect is to be preferred.