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Learning and teaching English in the Netherlands

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Learning and teaching English in the Netherlands

Tag Archives: Dutch

Can something, anything, be more stupid?

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in translation

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Dutch, mistranslations, Translation, translation programmes

My dear guest, this may not be for you if you don’t understand Dutch and have no interest in translation, but I just can’t avoid sharing this with anyone who does.

I’m translating a long big text with mostly broken sentences from Dutch into English with the help of a translation programme (otherwise, how could I translate more than 5000 words a day …). It is quite tedious and disheartening because it concerns mostly answers like “I want privacy”, “I love to be on my own” etc., but it’s somewhat understandable because it’s about holiday solutions. Anyway, here, one translatable original sentence says, “staat me niet aan”.

Well, the programme uses outside translation engines as well and as a first suggestion, it gives me the MateCat solution, which starts out, in this case, from an original that said, “Regelaar staat niet aan.” Fine, some similarity all right, could be used. The program says it has a 70% match as a solution – mind you, the match is supposed to be a match to my original sentence.

So, what do I get as a solution? Are you sitting? Well, it says, “Regelaar staat niet aan.” Yes, in Dutch. It is exactly the same as their original source sentence – 100%. In a translation into English. It is a 70% match, it says, right?

Being a translator instead of a teacher is nice and quiet. And sometimes very (VERY!) amusing. Have a nice day!

By P.S.

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Teach Dutch to refugees

17 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in applying for a job in the Netherlands, Dutch culture, education, European Union, foreign language teaching, immigration, learning Dutch, refugees in Europe

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Dutch, Netherlands

Lots of talk has been going on in all forums and media about the refugee crisis in Europe over the past months. A major problem for people who can actually have a relevant effect on events seems to be having to navigate between the Scylla of generous humanitarian help and the Charybdis of strict rejection.

As far as I know, the Netherlands is fairly quiet about the matter as the brunt of the problem seems to have to be borne by Southern- and Eastern-European countries, Austria, Germany and Sweden, but I know of situations where the “my home is my castle” notion has already come to work at a few places here where real refugees in actual neighbourhoods were planned to be lodged.

The Netherlands has been one of a few countries, in my view, which has a history of taking perhaps the singularly most important helpful action in the event of receiving refugees, the importance of which Germany has just been getting acquainted with: teaching the language of the host nation. When I was young, geography classes dealt with how many Turkish temporary workers were employed in Germany. Since we were informed that they actually remained in Germany for a long time and took over jobs that Germans themselves were loth to do, I’ve always thought they were integrated into the society. In the political turmoil of recent months, I’ve been proven wrong.

Well, I’m one of the beneficiaries of Dutch efficiency about teaching Dutch to foreigners as I’ve already described earlier. In line with that system, the other day I received an invitation to help teach Dutch to refugees in Gelderland here as I’m still registered with a number of intermediary organizations. Here is the text of the letter:

“U staat bij ons ingeschreven en momenteel zoeken we naar meerdere docenten NT2 voor diverse locaties en dagdelen. Het gaat om lessen NT2 aan vluchtelingen.
We zijn op zoek naar ZZP-ers, met een CRKBO erkenning (of in ieder geval BTW vrij factureren). Ik benader u nu via een algemene mailing, dus indien u geen ZZP-er bent dan alvast excuus dat ik u deze mail en vacature heb gestuurd.”

Being a language teacher to the core, a ZZP-er providing BTW invoices, and a sort of “economic refugee” myself, and having passed the NT2 exam, I jumped to the occasion. I can at last do something in return for what this system has done for me and a lot of my friends, one of whom, out of Iraq, has just received his PhD at Utrecht University as a microbiologist, so the investment into the language first and foremost may pay off wonderful dividends for those concerned.

Under the link provided in the e-mail, the important points concerning the jobs (needs!) are as follows (I’m not translating this text either – it doesn’t matter for those who don’t understand it, but those who may actually be interested in trying to take one of these positions have to understand it anyway):

“Voor onze opdrachtgever, met diverse locaties in het land, zjin we met spoed op zoek naar ervaren docenten NT2 voor minimaal 3 dagdelen per week. Het betreft een reguliere vacature.

Voor de vacature zoeken we docenten (ZZP-ers met een CRKBO erkenning) die ruime ervaring hebben met het geven van NT2 lessen en ervaring heeft met meerdere niveau’s in 1 groep.
Hieronder een overzicht van de locaties en de dagdelen:

  • Culemborg – exacte lesdagen en tijden nog niet bekend – Startdatum 18-01-2016;
  • Epe – lesdagen: woensdag en vrijdagochtend – Startdatum 20-01-2016;
  • Schijndel – lesdagen: maandag, dinsdag en donderdagochtend – startdatum 26-01-2016;
  • Ede – exacte lesdagen en tijden nog niet bekend – Startdatum 08-02-2016;
  • Wageningen – exacte lesdagen en tijden nog niet bekend – Startdatum 15-02-2016;
  • Zutphen – lesdagen: woensdag en vrijdagmiddag – Startdatum 24-02-2016;
  • Ede – exacte lesdagen en tijden nog niet bekend – Startdatum 14-03-2016, 2 groepen van 2 of 3 dagdelen

Heb je ruime ervaring met het verzorgen van NT2 aan vluchtelingen, ben je langere tijd beschikbaar voor een groep op de bovengenoemde locatie en dagdelen? Ben je ZZP-er die BTW vrij kan factureren? Dan ontvangen wij graag jouw motivatie en cv!

…

De docent die we zoeken:

  • beschikt over een Post HBO NT2, een certificaat NT2 of;
  • beschikt over een Bevoegdheid Basiseducatie of BVE
  • heeft ruime ervaring met het verzorgen van lessen NT2;
  • is ZZP-er en in bezit van VAR WUO of DGA
  • heeft een CRKBO erkenning en/of kan BTW vrij factureren;
  • is beschikbaar voor minimaal 3 dagdelen per week
  • heeft bij voorkeur ervaring met de methodes 7/43, Taalcompleet (Kleurrijker) , Op maat sprong en De Finale”

Here is the link to the site with this and more information, for example about fees offered.

If you consider applying, beware: you really have to fulfil ALL of the above conditions! Consider this: after being invited and having applied, I received no answer for a few days, but a repeat of the invitation (“Wellicht is deze mail aan uw aandacht ontsnapt, vandaar dat ik u nogmaals aanschrijf”). In answer to my second letter reinforcing my intent, I received a flat rejection saying that they are looking for people who fully comply with the requirements.

And here I see a sort of a problem with the system. They are intent on setting up courses, but a week before some of them (are planned to) start, they’re still short of teachers. I doubt again that there are a lot of teachers around who are actually free several mornings of the week and have nothing better to do in the middle of the academic year, and who, further, have not only the enthusiasm but also ‘a lot of experience teaching refugees’ with the particular materials and can provide invoices as ZZP-ers. Most teachers are not ZZP-ers. They teach at schools. They are the ones that taught me and my friends. Those who are ZZP-ers here teach English, not Dutch, and to all kinds of Dutch people at companies and businesses, not to refugees. And quite some of them (hope I’m wrong) actually do not agree with helping refugees in the first place. I mean they are probably British people with a certain degree of notoriety about rejecting foreigners settling down in their country.

So, despite the nice idea, who are going to teach a few hundred refugees in East Netherlands? Not me – I haven’t got the experience, and as a result, never will acquire it, however much I’d like to. Perhaps you? Don’t hesitate, apply if you’d like to do something for a better, still peaceful Europe.

by P.S. 

The System of the Dutch State Language Examination – part 2

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in language learning, language testing, learning Dutch, Netherlands

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Dutch, Second language, Staatsexamen, Standardized test, Test (assessment)

At an average NT2 Staatsexamen, the second part of the first day is the speaking test. The listening test itself takes about 30 minutes, but it is perhaps the most precarious of the four parts. After the one-hour break following the writing part, sitting through registration and the identity check again takes enough time for our blood pressure to seriously drop to near zero, which is anything but what we need for this part.

The speaking test on Level 1 has about 20 questions in two parts, consisting of 20-second and then 30-second answer intervals, whereas on Level 2, the 20 or so questions are grouped into 20-second, 30-second answers with a third part requiring two two-minute answers. As to topics, what we have said about level differences in general holds here too, with Level 2 requiring more professional answers.

The questions in the first part require fairly simple, short, one- or two-sentence reactions within 20 seconds. Time before the following situation is short, the candidate has to put themself into new shoes rather fast and then respond very quickly again. This is fairly do-able due to the relatively simple situations, but if the candidate’s blood pressure has already fallen, it is difficult enough to suddenly speed up.

The questions in the second part tend to be a lot more complex, and the changes in topic follow each other similarly fast. We noted that the 30 seconds allowed for response prove too often to be rather short. Chatty types could do it better, but the questions require anything but a chat. With the frequent demand for the explanation of two or three different aspects of the problem, illustrated in three drawings, or sentences, a decision supported with minimum two reasons often proves too much for 30 seconds.

What a prospective candidate needs to bear in mind is that preparation for those two parts of the speaking test mainly requires preparation on their own in the most unnatural circumstances. We have to get used to communicating our fast shifting personality to someone who never reacts to us. This is as far from normal human interaction as can be, but this is the basis for the examiners to assess our speaking skills. No matter how appropriately we can communicate in real life, here we have only 20 or 30 seconds to say something, and properly at that, otherwise we lose valuable points and may fail easily.

Computerization is inevitable, we all know, but my personal opinion as an experienced oral examiner in Hungary is that a 15-minute personal dialogue about three various topic areas provides a far more reliable impression of the candidate’s language skills (and overall communication abilities as well, as human interaction is far more than speech) than such lightning-quick, impersonal attempts at reaction. Even with  secondary impressions sometimes at play. IELTS, Cambridge First Certificate English (FCE), or Cambridge Advanced English (CAE) tests provide similar examples of well-documented dialogues as speaking tests. There, there is possibility to bring out what the candidate is capable of, here, the candidate’s shortcomings are mercilessly brought to light under unnaturally intense circumstances. Here, momentarily forgetting just one key-word is enough to ring alarm bells in the mind and to lose half the time for a response, not to mention a potential to lose quality through embarrassment to oneself. Besides, I am not sure there is less time needed for evaluation here. The two evaluators have to listen carefully for 30 minutes of recording from each candidate and then decide. In the classical oral format, the two examiners rarely need more than 15 minutes per person to come to a decision, and in a much more relaxed atmosphere. Of course, we can say that, due to the standardized format, evaluation based on computerized answers here may happen extremely easily, almost automatically. But is it not this that allows for the complete loss of the individual?

Under the circumstances, this sort of testing requires rigorous preparation. The candidate has to get used to what he or she never faces in real life, after all. Alas, such training is often missing at courses. Most teachers preparing you for the exams feel the need to control the language use of the students, the need to correct if something is not completely good. But such approach demands far too much time, and does not make it possible for the students to get accustomed to the demand that they need to give rapid reactions for anything that gets thrown at them appropriately and sometimes even with mistakes. The stress involved is the most demanding, most important to be used to, but that seems to be least practiced. At the James Boswel Institute at the University of Utrecht, the necessary first step was taken, with recording the speaker and the output analysed afterwards, but then again, it happened only once or twice to a few people for 20 or 30 seconds. Hardly anything in terms of training for the stress involved in keeping it up for half an hour and taking turns of personalities about 18 or 20 times. So a prospective examinee must do the whole thing on his/her own, with his/her own recorder at home. It’s only that he/she needs to make up the questions themself too, because the one or two practice sets used at courses are far from enough, and they are usually not to be taken home either. How realistic does all this sound?

I have to add that the last two questions of the Level 2 exam are much more complex than those before, but there are two minutes of preparation time and two minutes of answer time provided, so the stress is far less. Also, these questions do not require four times as complex and detailed answers as the 30-second ones, and the candidate  has enough time to accommodate themself to the new circumstances and roles. Almost a cinch, compared to the previous 15-or-so questions.

On the second day of a full state examination, the candidates face a two-hour reading test followed by a long break, and then a somewhat shorter listening test of around 70 minutes answer-time. In both parts, 40 questions have to be answered.

In the reading part, you have to read six different texts on paper, but that number may sometimes vary, and one can wonder what it will look like if they completely computerize the texts as well. The questions have to be answered on the computer screen, usually out of three possibilities, occasionally out of four. The candidate can follow his/her own speed and rhythm, which seems to make this part relatively easy, but mind you, the texts and answers tend to grow in complexity towards the end, so the two hours provided are normally just enough. To divide your time in two hours is also a lot more difficult than within one hour, not everybody finds it comfortable, so do not make the mistake of thinking that this part is easy, all the less so because the vocabulary and complexity of text is here on the highest level of all the four parts, coupled with the necessity to have good analytical skills. However, on courses, this type of work is the most frequent, so you are already well used to such tests. That said, this part is not very stressful, but, due to the language level and complexity, tiring enough so that we need the break afterwards.

The listening part could again prove quite stressful. At courses, listening tests are sometimes done, but very rarely discussed, so I would say that the logic of choosing answers and the language points involved are not properly trained beforehand. In my own experience, at a summer school provided for hard money at the James Boswel Institute at the University of Utrecht, listening tasks were not covered at all.

The test itself, consisting of the usual 40 questions, is a continuous fight for fast understanding. Before each question, there is the same time provided to read the question and the three alternative answers, whether the answers are short and simple, or consist of longer and more complex sentences, so very often, you do not have enough time to read through the questions properly before the relevant snippet of one of the five or six dialogues already begins. Even if you can easily follow the dialogue, which may or may not be the case, if you need more time afterwards to browse through the options again and choose, you lose your time to properly read through the following question and answers. And that is where you may get stressed and frustrated again. You can later go back to a previous question, but only in your own time for another answer and also without the possibility to listen to the relevant part again, so it is strongly advised not to do this. What I deem necessary is to fully understand the question and the options as well, and then to memorize the gist of all the options. With that in mind, we can choose the correct option while we keep listening, then check ourselves at the very end of the snippet and click. Not always easy, but must be done. That having said, I can say this part is do-able, especially if one already has some practice through frequent talks to people in real life, or watching television, or doing the listening tasks most likely coming with a course book.

Candidates get the official result by post six weeks after the exam, but it is already available to be seen on the DUO web-site with your registration number after five weeks. It is possible to get diplomas about each successful part if you do not succeed overall. One re-take per year is possible, and if fully successful in all parts after that, DUO  is ready to issue a full diploma if requested.

With these explanations, I hope we have provided prospective students of Dutch a useful overview of what can be expected at preparatory courses and at the exams themselves. We wish you good luck and success.

by Z.J.Shen and P.S.

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The System of the Dutch State Language Examination – part 1

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in education, language learning, language testing, learning Dutch, Netherlands

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Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, Dutch, Dutch as a foreign language, education in the netherlands, Rote learning, tests

In this post, we’d like to shed some light on this system for the sake of those only considering taking to studying the language at the time of reading and later planning to take an exam. The system is described in detail on the English version of the DUO web-site, but instead of repeating some tedious details, we’d like to outline some of the facts more from the perspective of the student and his/her needs.

There are three kinds of exams in the system. The first is the so-called “inburghering” exam, which, from the language point of view, corresponds to level A2 of the Common European Framework. Above this is the NT2 Staatsexamen Niveau 1, which corresponds to B1 level, and then the same at Niveau 2, which corresponds, on paper, to the higher B2 level.

The first sort is actually necessary for those from outside the EU wishing to stay in the Netherlands for a longer period and get Dutch nationality, that is, “inburghering”, to become Dutch citizens. Until now, in order to pass, the candidate has had to, among others, choose the correct response in various more-or-less official situations, which necessitates knowledge of some laws and a lot of customs in the country. Another part involved choosing the correct responses in small everyday situation. Sadly, preparatory courses to prepare for such tasks take the form of rote-learning contests and the winners remember the most of the necessary reactions well to be able to make the correct choices on screen. From the student’s point of view, teaching is a nightmare.

Another part of the exam has been to record the opposites of words read out in the head-phone on the computer. We consider this to be very far from language use as well, still, it demands a bit more active participation than clicking choices. Preparation for such tasks is also a nightmare. Not very much better was a part where the candidate was required to re-tell and record a small story read out to him/her by the computer. This task seems to require active participation, but actually, its point is to instantly memorize and regurgitate things heard. Tiring and very testing on concentration, but not very realistic either.

Besides three central parts, this exam included a practical portfolio as well, which the candidate had to fill in with the results of actual conversations with people, often at offices of the police, or a lawyer, or in a shop, and this is where it made sense. This was the only really valuable part, except that it was sometimes possible to cheat, and preparation for it was rather half-hearted.

This system has now been changed into a five-part central test. Besides the usual four basic skills, knowledge of the Dutch society still forms a part. We must point out that preparatory courses on this level teach very little of the language, there is little language practice during lessons, so there is very little room even to understand basic Dutch grammar there. Hopefully, the new, more skill-based exam engenders more language teaching instead of rote-learning, yet, at least until this becomes the norm, perhaps within a number of years, those starting to learn Dutch from scraps are well advised to first follow a good Dutch course in their own country and learn the basic necessities, and then undertake an “inburgheringscursus”. For those with other, deeper interests, understanding and learning from a spouse is always a better option.

For those who do not need to get nationalized, but wish to learn the language and take exams, we strongly advise to avoid such courses here. Instead, they had better bring up their level to A2 in other ways and then follow a B1-level course. After sudden changes and economic downturns in the country, there is now very little state subsidy coming in the way of the participant, so you have to look carefully what you pay for. Besides, the cost of the examinations have doubled for this year, so now expect to have to pay €180 for a full NT2 exam on both levels. And that after a course already cost you a thousand or two. On the other hand, exam courses may sometimes well serve you to get you acquainted with the demands and required techniques of each part of the state exam. After you’ve already learned the language well.

For nationalization, you are not required to raise your language level above A2, that is, after the “inburghering” exam, you can simply stop and become a housewife. NT2 exams are necessary, however, if you want to follow studies. Level 1 is needed for you to follow secondary courses, to become a nurse, or cook, or the like, or to get a simple job; level 2 is necessary if you want to go to university. We are not saying that those exams are enough for those purposes, but that the paper about them are prerequisites. Institutions and work-places retain their rights to individually look at what the applicant’s language is like. But don’t worry – if you are capable of obtaining one or the other diploma, the studies you follow will take care of the further development of your language. Just do not expect anyone to teach you the language when you already follow school or university courses – you have to have a sufficient basis to succeed on your own. We have to add that, on the job market, in certain industries where there is a real shortage of highly skilled manpower, like it is with ICT turners, reasonable levels of speaking English, or German are enough to get a well-paid job.

As our experience with Level 1 is more than a year old, we are not going into details about that. That and Level 2 of NT2 is now renewed and is still in the process in that it is not yet fully computerized, but it is going to be until the end of 2013. Besides, there are only a few small differences between the tests at Level 1 and Level 2, the difference being mostly of quality and level, not of kind. However, more recent experience of others also indicate that there is a thematic difference between the two levels: on Level 1, the candidate has to switch roles or react to situations more in everyday life, simple work tasks and the like, like talk to a neighbour, or give instructions about using office equipment, or give directions somewhere; whereas on Level 2, the candidate has to read, or write about, or react to tasks and roles that require interests in higher education, like work procedures of a physiotherapist, manager of a national park, or an entrepreneur in commerce or art.

At the moment, half of the writing part of NT2 is done on paper, but it will cease to be soon, so the candidate must have ample typing skills. The timing and so the tempo of the test requires more speed than how we can type with two fingers, so be prepared to acquire this skill by all means. In both halves, there are a number of shorter tasks, like one or two sentences to be filled in an e-mail, and a couple of longer texts to be composed. As we are allowed to use dictionaries, the skills for doing that is also of importance for success. The length of each part is about one hour, so it is also a matter of perseverance.

Much more difficult is the speaking part, of which we are going to talk tomorrow along with the listening and reading part. Stay tuned if you have the interest.

By Z.J.Shen and P.S.

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Interesting features of education – Part 2: teacher training in the Netherlands

10 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in English teaching, language teaching, teacher training

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Dutch, education, education in the netherlands, Netherlands, Teacher

I was recently lucky to meet someone who explained the ways of becoming a language teacher in the Netherlands.

The different levels of education in the Nethe...

The different levels of education in the Netherlands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As it happens around the world, teaching a language starts by following university courses. In the Dutch system, universities constitute the WO section of education, which stands for ‘Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs’. Those who wish to become teachers, have to do practice teaching as well as following university courses during the last two years of their studies. This is called ‘stage’, pronounced, unlike pronunciation of the English word of the same lettering, as /’sta:ʒǝ/. In general, teaching practice takes several days a week over a year, when the student visits and later conducts lessons in several hours a day, followed by ‘reflexion’, that is, discussion of what has happened, what went well and what didn’t, and what could change another time. There is also opportunity follow university studies part-time, in which case practice lengthens a couple of years and course-work formats are changed somewhat.

In theory, this system looks very good because it gives over a hundred hours of practice for the development of the trainee to become a full-blown teacher. However, as a former teacher trainer confided to me, the quality of trainees is often quite low, while trainers often neglect their trainees, cutting down on the reflexion stage, sometimes to a quarter hour per week, sometimes to nothing. In this case the whole idea of development through discussion, reflection and self-reflection suffers a deadly blow, as it happens to a friend of mine also on ‘stage’. Her practice turns out to be a full-time job without being paid. It looks like employment-lead training in Britain, except that there she would be paid a salary.

Teaching practice takes place at schools of any kind anywhere in the system where the leadership offers opportunities to those on practice time. One looking for job opportunities most usually reads about vacancies for people with one year experience in their specific sector (VMBO/MAVO, MBO, HAVO, HBO or VWO for secondary-level applicants) followed by saying that ‘stagiaires’, those on teaching practice, are also most welcome. There are a few ads for people with several years of experience, but the stated number is usually below five years. This probably doesn’t have much to do with refusing experience, but a belief that those freshly out of WO have more dynamism, but also with a very steeply rising salary-scale until fifteen years of experience. This to me means, on the one hand, that the system believes and appreciates a fast improvement in quality with the first years of practice, but also that experience quickly becomes expensive. However, older, more experienced teachers don’t get further pay-rise, so they don’t become overly more expensive for schools to employ them instead of a 40-year-old. Hopefully, this gives chances for older people to move, but it my also be an indication that most experienced teachers don’t usually have any incentive to do so.

This system is different from the British or Hungarian systems. In Britain, for a teaching diploma, one needs a separate line of studies after the specific subject is fully completed, at which point the would-be teacher enters teaching college. Here I would need help from British teachers about the ways of how and where teaching practice is carried out, as I have no relevant experience. However, one article, listed below by Daniel, describes the author’s path to teaching and out of this article, we can safely deduce that teacher training in Britain has a great variety of forms depending most often from the training school’s own ways. As teaching requires post-grad studies in Britain, the Dutch system may only resemble this in its institutional variety.

How the – much more unified – system works in Hungary is discussed in a the following post.

by P.S.

Dutch Flag

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Interesting features of education – Part 1: volunteers and teaching material in the Netherlands

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in language learning, language teaching

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Tags

Dutch, Dutch people, education, Language education, Netherlands

I’ve discovered a number of outstanding features about language education in the Netherlands during the few years I’ve spent here. Perhaps the most special kind concerns teaching Dutch to foreigners, ‘Nederlandse taal voor andertaligens’, as it is called here.

It has been an important issue for the country because the Netherlands has been one of the few countries in Europe where the country has received a very sizable influx of foreigners for years. As a result, the Dutch comprise only 80% of the population, which means that teaching Dutch to fast growing numbers of immigrants has been big business and important for the country. My educated guess is that with a 1.76 fertility rate, the long-term and steady population growth of around 0.50% is to a large extent due to immigration.

Availability of Dutch course-books in libraries reflects this importance, but not that in book-shops. A couple of recent forays into local book-shops strengthened my earlier feelings that course-books in general are not publicly available. This holds true for any languages, be it Dutch, English, or German. It contrasts starkly with the availability of foreign language course material even in smaller towns in Hungary or at bigger places in China, and also with the availability of a very wide range of dictionaries that conforms to the colourful presence of so many ethnic groups in the country. The availability of Dutch course material in libraries indicates a healthy effort to supply for the needs of immigrants, but the lack of it in book-shops strikes one as strange. Even the rather muted efforts to widen the teaching of the native language in Hungary seems huge in comparison on this basis, not to mention the presence of Chinese courses available in China in spite of the weak state of teaching methodology. One seriously wonders how to get a picture about what students are taught from at school.

Insider opinion I’ve met recently holds that languages are taught using course material made in the Netherlands, not internationally. The same opinion also stated that choice usually depends on conservatism versus the over-valuation of the new. This would also support the conclusion I’ve drawn elsewhere and also from the fact that one can’t find Dutch participants at international events, that is, the profession is over-confident and isolated from international influences in language teaching. It also indicates that teaching languages is big business for Dutch professionals, though the quality may not always match international levels, which can be deducted from the price per quality ratio of the new series of books used by our regional MBO school for teaching Dutch, Code: the content is sometimes very strange, sometimes really modern with live video; the looks of the books reminds one of the quality of the Alexander-series of yore from Britain, or the quality of the first Hungarian course-books published in the late 1970’s; and the price is about four times that of international publications by Cambridge or Macmillan. If it is anything to go by about other languages, somebody does make big business out of teaching English, French and the other languages at school at the expense of those who need to buy their products in the absence of foreign competition.

Because ‘inburghering’, that is, helping immigrants learn the culture, administrative systems and everyday life as well as the language, is so important in the Netherlands, teaching is widely supported and delivered in a large number of various institutions and also by the population. One evidence is that schools are able to draw quite a number of volunteers, ‘vreiwilligers’ in Dutch, to help teachers with their work in class. This means that ordinary Dutch people with enough time feel it nice to come to classes and take part in group work making sure that good enough language is used by the groups. They are not teachers, but as natives, they can help the foreigners understand and use ordinary Dutch. Some of the volunteers also hold regular “office hours” in a separate place to help those in need of something extra after or before class, which takes the form of short one-to-one talks and discussions. I find both these kinds of help extremely useful and kind of the people involved.

But the most outstanding and unique feature takes us outside school. The system is called ‘taalmaatjes’, which means that a lot of Dutch people volunteer to regularly meet foreigners interested in the programme for a few hours a week and share their culture and language with them just for the sake of spending a few hours usefully and with communication with strange people. Such ‘language partners‘ also do this free of charge, for the joy and friendship in their free time. As this is also face-to-face, but regular as well, people get used to the foreigners’ needs, and can concentrate on them personally a lot more than teachers in class could. I can personally thank more to my taalmaatje now than to my teachers because my language partner is intelligent and can provide invaluable information on the one hand about collocations and idioms in the language, which are the most difficult to practice in class circumstances, and because, on the other hand, make it possible for me to speak intensively in supported circumstances for two hours. Such intensity and density of information about the language can’t be achieved in a normal Dutch class. Besides, the programme adds a lot to the understanding and the accommodation of newcomers in the country, so it is a basic ingredient to the much-needed mutual understanding and acceptance of differences among peoples.

With economic problems hitting this country too, schools in the Netherlands don’t have to see their budgets seriously cut, but, to my amazement, the ‘taalmaatje’ program was officially scraped in the middle of 2011. I find this very strange especially because the system only needed a small number of administrative people who have other tasks in their jobs as well, while the people involved in the actual work of helping learners, i.e. the ‘taalmaatjes’, didn’t get any remuneration. A proof of the success among Dutch people of the program is that a lot of those who were already participants at the time of the cuts have been keeping contact with their foreign friends ever since. This was and still is, through its intensity, perhaps the most effective way of language teaching coupled with tolerance and cultural understanding, while it costs next to nothing.

A great pity the government doesn’t support the program, but perhaps it is in connection with a kind of turning away from the long-term trend of welcoming foreigners in the country. Financial support to help immigrants learn Dutch has also been scraped on the whole, which is very likely to represent an emerging trend among the population against easy integration and further welcoming of immigrants. This trend was represented, for example, by one parliamentary party’s web-site earlier this year against Polish workers in the country.

To let you better understand the impact of such moves on a small country like the Netherlands or Hungary and the like, I’d like to give you a personal example. I’ve known a very nice young man from Iraq for years, who came here, and received refugee status and financial aid to live here and follow his studies at one of the best Dutch universities. His specialization is in microbiology, and after receiving his MSc mostly in English, he’s now pursuing his PhD studies in Dutch. Had he not received any financial help and language support over the years, he wouldn’t be able to do this, he would have left for Great Britain, for example. He may not stay very long after graduation because his field is very specific and this country is too small to support further researchers and research in it. It is far more likely that he’ll be able to get a research job in one of the English-speaking countries. By extension, we can safely say that any people with talent coming here would not stay here without language help, would not be able to utilize their talent to its full potential and wouldn’t make it possible for the Dutch economy to invest more in, and benefit more from, R&D on a scale comparable to the potentials of larger economies speaking the largest world language. The Netherlands can’t really become larger, but is still attractive to foreign talent, but only if the language barrier is surmountable in the first place. As R&D is the real measure of economic growth potential, and its source, besides capital, is the brains and intellect of the country’s inhabitants, talent shouldn’t be lost at the very first hurdle, on the language front, in any small country.

by P.S.

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Ideas about what works while learning a language – Part One

28 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by ZJShen-PSimon in English teaching, language learning

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

China, Dutch, education, English language, Language acquisition, Netherlands, Second language

Now that I’ve done so much description, I’m going to expand on the critical side with some positive touch for the benefit of those who may find any kind of advice useful.

I must hasten to add at the very beginning that I’m not a good language learner. I studied, well, yeah, I know, but even then: Russian at school for 8 years followed by 2 more at university, and in the end I didn’t understand when they asked me for my name at the oral exam. However, I made a perfect written translation, so that’s something about what kind of learner I am. I have also studied some (between a few months and a year of) French, Italian, Bulgarian, Rumanian and Slovak, but I never really spoke more than a few sentences in these and they are, for lack of practice, long gone by now. Then I tried Chinese and now Dutch. Not a very fruitful linguistic career, but then again, I can say I belong to the majority, who can only learn maximum one second language. That’s what I could use as encouragement for my Chinese students: if I was able to learn good English, so can you, because I also didn’t have much else to help me but the teacher and the classes at school, we also did not have listening material, didn’t meet native speakers and didn’t, for the most of us, listen to English songs (at the time of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, few people had access to western radio channels).

But as an average learner, I can say that most people then are average learners. Most people in the world find it difficult to learn a second language at school. On the other hand, most articles, blogs and their comments come from people with outstanding linguistic abilities, the kind that already speaks 4-5 languages because they have talent, time and money to do so. I wouldn’t like to explain myself on those terms and levels, I’d like to speak to those who have none of the above advantages, perhaps. I’d also like to benefit the masses of teachers addressing crowds of average students.

I must also point out the difference between language acquisition and language learning. The acquisition of a language is the natural process of learning to understand and then speak and read and write our own mother tongue. Multilingual acquisition also happens in some parts of the world, where people acquire a second language, or more, in a natural way, mingling with neighbours who speak a different one from their own mother tongue, like many people in rural Africa, or South-East or South-Asia, where the former colonial languages are also often naturally acquired along with perhaps several tribal-local languages. This could be ideal, but it depends on where we were born, so can’t really be affected. What remains for others is studying at school.

And there come the problems. The student depends on the national culture of schooling or education as well as his/her own work and talent. If he’s a lazy one, he can still get by alright in the Netherlands, where the general idea is to let the kids develop at their own pace and in general, there’s little interference or pressure on a learner. In China, the lazy one may become suicidal in areas where studying is considered the only possible way to get out of poverty. Such suicides have lately been widely publicized, although the case may be that statistically it happens just as rarely as in Europe, where the population is only about 60% of that of China, or in the US, with half the population of Europe, so it doesn’t happen every decade. Perhaps Japan is famous for some earlier cases, which might mean a higher occurrence statistically.

However it happens, studying a language at school is just one among a lot of other subjects, so the majority handle it that way. But I’ve often met the idea, usually promoted by failing students, that their failure is the teacher’s fault. They shouldn’t be failed, because everybody is capable of learning a language just like history, chemistry or maths and they’ve managed to pass those – well, often only just, I must add. And while probably few students have ever got suicidal over languages, they quite often fail in maths or other subjects, so, we can be sure that they can sometimes fail in a language as well. That just happens at school, as it almost happened to me with Russian.

The reasons are numerous even if discounting the basic cultural surroundings and requirements. I would group them into three areas: the complexity of learning languages, the so-called learning types and individual psychological/intellectual differences.

First of all, learning languages is perhaps the most complex kind of learning, only comparable to learning to play a musical instrument. Both involve a lot of muscular activity (of course of different parts of the musculature), flexibility of body organs as well as the brain, intellectual power, the retaining power of the memory, the power to repeat and persevere with practice in the face of possible boredom, but with languages, we need more interactive ability, problem-solving ability, power to analyse and synthesize smaller and larger structures, like grammar and sentence types, creativity to restructure the elements of language in new ways, so possibly even faster reaction to stimuli, and above the level of everyday chatting, speaking a language well also presupposes a lot of knowledge outside the language itself.

This also means that some extent of failure to speak a language doesn’t mean that the person is not intelligent. On the other hand, he or she may lack patience to practice, withstand the boredom inherent in revising and practicing vocabulary items or grammatical patterns, may be impatient with any kind of grammatization, or is simply a reticent person who doesn’t like to speak a lot.

By the same token, somebody very successful with languages in general may not be a very intelligent person but may simply have the knack and liking for the aforementioned, may perhaps be only a very sociable, perhaps even foolishly sociable person who feels absolutely no shame when uttering stupid mistakes – it may be enjoyable practice for him/her even when others may consider him/her aggressive. That may be a kind of positive selfishness as well.

The second set of conditions for un/successful language learning is the variety of learning types, which are not often discussed in blogs lately, so let me give you some basics.

Pedagogy usually mentions three basic learning types. Visual learners have a preference for seeing (think in pictures; visual aids such as overhead slides, diagrams, handouts, etc.). Auditory learners best learn through listening (lectures, discussions, tapes, etc.). Tactile/kinesthetic learners prefer to learn via experience—moving, touching, and doing (active exploration of the world; science projects; experiments, etc.). Its use in pedagogy allows teachers to prepare classes that address each of these areas. Well, idealistically. But if a teacher of a class of 30-40 pupils, or more than 50 as in some countries like China, tries to work according to the so-called mashing-method that takes these types in consideration, he/she is likely doomed to failure simply by the impossibility to get to know most of his/her students having 5-6 or more such groups every week. Sometimes methods also contradict the culture and traditions, so I can find it difficult to imagine that a lot of teachers would dare and be able to use methods catering for kinesthetic students in a country used to students sitting rigidly at their places slavishly repeating phrases or words by the teacher. I also met the idea in Hungary of giving differentiated materials and handling students according to their abilities in language classes, where the usual class sizes are very often halved for languages. The idea is usually promoted by headmasters and other colleagues not related to language teaching, but I never really met a colleague who managed to implement this ideal well in practice. We have to accept that we do our best and the students do theirs if, but it’s next to impossible to prepare for each and every individual in 5-6 teaching hours every day 5, or in China 6, days a week.

Students can themselves use the model to identify their preferred learning style and maximize their educational experience by focusing on what benefits them the most. Could, but for the fact that teachers don’t draw their attention to such possibilities and have precious little time to suggest a few activities for the students to start with at home. Besides, pedagogy is in itself in contention if the whole idea of the three learner types is neurologically valid. If it were, I should have learned Russian along with English at secondary school, especially after good result in primary. But I didn’t. Or there were and are other factors at play too.

It is true, however, that some students who love listening to English pop songs and do so often, learn, or should I say acquire, the language naturally. It is sometimes suggested that learners listen to music and get to love the language through it. Well, to my mind it’s a good ideas and I have often seen it work, but what if the target language is not English? Have large numbers of pupils ever listened to Chinese, Slovakian, or Dutch pop-songs? I can’t imagine that situation. For learners of some languages other than English, some other methods may work better. It’s about the emotional relationship now. If one doesn’t care about the use of the language but enjoys listening to it, it makes a world of difference. So as teachers, we could try to entice the students

A painting from the Rembrandt-museum, Amsterdam

with something aesthetically pleasing – not with paintings of Picasso, Rembrandt, Riepin or Munkácsy, though those can also be used, but we can show (especially for the benefit of the visual type) photos of interesting cities, buildings, people or activities to our students. Easy again with English, but not significantly more difficult with German, French, Spanish or Italian either. Lots of European language teachers are of the open-minded and well-travelled type, they can even raise their students interests in learning more exotic languages, like Arabic, Chinese or Russian, or even Swahili, by showing them their own photos taken during holidays. However, the important point here should be not simply to flip through the pictures, but to stop with many, evoking personal stories and inviting discussion. Such experiences have a chance of becoming an experience for the pupils themselves too, and through the emotions going with this, will become memorable fix, familiar points to learning.

From the point of view of learning types, language learning may give some advantage to some and disadvantage to others in comparison with learning other subjects. Whereas learning most other subjects may give advantage to the intellectual visual types or, if the teacher lectures better than the book to follow, the audio types, language learning involves a lot more doing than, say, learning biology or history, if there’s any discussion in the pedagogic repertoire of the language teacher. Most kinds of group work, discussion of problems, problem solving tasks and the so-called task-based learning above all, involve a lot of speaking, and that itself is doing for many. Problem-solving stimulates the intellectual types. Games and other group activities like line dictation, arranging sentence part or themselves in patterns and the like add real bodily movement and such a language lesson far exceeds the effectiveness of language classes for the kinesthetic type that any other subject can attain.

The third major group of factors involve the learner’s psychological and intellectual leanings. Like with all people, some students may be sociable types and like talking overlooking their own mistakes easily, as I’ve already mentioned. They can survive any language course with flying colours and being among the most popular members anywhere in the world, though the quality of their achievement may vary greatly. Others are almost afraid to speak out in public, be it a small group or a larger community. This type can just survive an oral test every semester in Hungary and can completely avoid attention in China, whereas could have very hard times in good

Classroom scene, student as teacher

Classroom scene, student as teacher (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

British schools where lots of community tasks, discussion and interaction is in order. Intellectual, quality-oriented people could take a lot more time to achieve good results, especially as speaking is concerned, but if they have resistance to the boredom of repetition, they may emerge as by far the best after a few years of study, and could become very good writers and debaters inside and outside class. They only need to survive the years before that without giving up their seemingly futile and embarrassing effort. On the other hand, they may stay slower speakers for the rest of their lives, but being more keen on reading, their vocabulary and general knowledge could sky-rocket.

Then there are the analytical and synthetic types. Without other major strengths, they may become great at solving grammar tests or writing tasks, could especially well analyze pieces of literature, but could never become good teachers or orators on the pulpit of a university. With a good balance and strong intellect, such people will become the best writers. I once had such a reticent type of student who started to write poetry at a young age, also in English. Another one concentrated solely on writing fantasy-literature, also instead of doing his homework tasks, but was so good at it that he got away with it. Unfortunately, those with such limited interest can’t bloom to be all-round excellent speakers of a language.

Others again may lack the sheer memory that is necessary for learning languages. Such people may need logic to support their retaining power, such that may easily come to their help in their own language with any subject but language. Without memory, they may acquire grammar skills, but could hardly use them for lack of means to fill in the spaces.

Another major requirement is to be able to hear well. If effort, intellect, memory, interactive interests are all present but the person still can’t make good differences among the sounds he/she hears and makes, they may become utterly embarrassing talking partners, sooner or later avoided by most. A language inherently has its musical qualities and without getting that right, correct intonation, articulation, sound formation will suffer greatly to the detriment of being understood. Of course, such people can still become very good writers, fast, voluptuous readers, or successful in any other field of life requiring language competences if they don’t need to and insist on talking too much.

Well, it sounds obvious that a language teacher should understand most of these sleeping abilities and difficulties at the cocoon-stage in most of their students and try to draw the attention of as many as possible to their own strengths and weaknesses within the time-constraints that may be. Besides, the teacher should have the utmost quality of the good teacher: persuasiveness. On the other hand, the student who has the advantage of being informed of his/her qualities should need the added ability and brevity to follow advice. With that, they may become successful language learners even against the odds. A tall order against the pull of modern hedonism.

Dutch Flag

Dutch Flag (Photo credit: Guido.)

Still more to come in part two

by P.S. and Z.J.S

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