tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6798372697599428727.post4753012613745974539..comments2024-01-26T02:50:31.892+01:00Comments on Turning Dutch: Dutch Primary Schools Lag Behind with Foreign Language TeachingAmanda van Mulligenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17328016562973171711noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6798372697599428727.post-78925994924449040362016-03-21T15:53:17.177+01:002016-03-21T15:53:17.177+01:00I feel like this compares a lot to where we are he...I feel like this compares a lot to where we are headed in the US with Spanish language instruction. Although, here we will have the advantage of being surrounded by native Spanish speakers as the Spanish-speaking population is rising. Are there many native English speaking people that live in the Netherlands?Kali Linhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16877482247877718304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6798372697599428727.post-37336963112420200032015-11-03T12:46:24.559+01:002015-11-03T12:46:24.559+01:00Dear all,
I'm a Canadian, living and working i...Dear all,<br />I'm a Canadian, living and working in the Netherlands and a mother of a boy who has just made his way to the middle school. <br />A quick reflection on English proficiency in the Netherlands:-)<br />- Recently I was at the Regica Coeli school to complete an advanced dutch language program (within one week). I assume you are aware of this school, a national pride 9and with an extremely expensive price tag:-). the school offers courses not only in dutch, but also in other languages (English, German, French, Spanish and Italian). While in the expat's circles Regica Coeli is considered a Dutch Language school, I was shocked to discover that in fact the best seller of the school's offerings was *the English*. The week when i was there, there were 120 dutch participants in the English classes, and around 40 participants (all exparts) in the dutch classes. i asked if the numbers are representative for all weeks and received a positive answer from the school's administration. Personally, I was surprised (this is an understatement) to see highly-educated consultants, professors, high level managers, and even executives of well-known Dutch companies trying to make the transition from intermediate to advanced level. Specific challenges that some of these Dutch people had were visibly simple things like using past perfect, reporting direct speech, and using propositions around verbs. Others worked hard on learning to compose emails where they had to negotiate things. I heard a teacher (a native American woman) giving a detailed explanation about why it's not a good idea to finish an email with "We hope we have informed you well". <br />- my son is 11 years old and is now in a VWO+ school; this is a school for children who one day will become university students (the children are selected among those who score at least 80+% on a centralized CITO test in Dutch and Math). So, we can say we assume the children to be above average in terms of academic performance. My son is competently fluent in both Dutch and English (we've been teaching him ourselves and ensured every summer he spends time in Canada - we are from Toronto). In a class of 30 children, my son is the only one who scores on every English test on average 9.5. The best grade achievable by a Dutch native child is 8.1. However, in a class of 29 children, only 4 have a grade higher than 6.5. The huge majority of children fall in the range of <=6.6, with 50% (!!!) of the children unable to pass (which means their grade is anywhere between 3 and 5.5). This is a key issue as English is a 'core subject' (kernvak) in the Dutch VWO system. The other two core subjects are Dutch and Math. Unability to make it above 5.5 has a severe impact to a child: it means that in the next academic year, it will be moved out of the VWO system (to HAVO - the type of education which excludes entry in the university system).<br />How comes so many children that otherwise score well on Dutch and Math, fail miserably in English?<br />I'm on my way to find this out... I have no theory that explains this observation, except maybe that the primary schools do very little to educate the children in English. La Torontoisenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6798372697599428727.post-47768824798947027592015-10-17T05:49:15.287+02:002015-10-17T05:49:15.287+02:00In their international school in Kazakhstan the ch...In their international school in Kazakhstan the children learned two foreign languages (Russian and Kazakh) from age 3 The formal lessons were useful but I think they learned more from their nanny and interactions with people day to day and because if they wanted to watch a DVD in the week I insisted they watched in Russian. By the time we left the kids were pretty good at Russian (our nanny could not speak Kazakh) but they have forgotten most of what they learned because they no longer practice. They currently study Malay and Mandarin but only have one lesson a week (compared with one a day in Kazakhstan) and have no exposure at home so progress is slow. <br /><br />My Dutch cousins learned all their English from the TV. By the time my youngest cousin was 8 he could hold a passable discussion with my toddler son. Ersatz Expathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03715056719284523304noreply@blogger.com