Onderwijs Nederlands in Centraal-Europa. Zes gevalsbeschrijvingen van effectieve NVT-instellingen

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is to provide information on how effective institutes for Dutch as a foreign language organise their education. As many teachers still seem to be left to fend for themselves in their efforts to improve their teaching, examples of good practice are provided through six case study descriptions of effective institutes. These descriptions are set into the context of the theoretical approaches concerning Dutch studies and the effectiveness of the institutes. It is hoped that this thesis will give these teachers clues as to how to improve their teaching of Dutch as a foreign language. This curriculum study is based upon five sources used to a different extent during its three phases, namely: an extensive questionnaire filled in at the institutes labelled as effective in teaching Dutch as a foreign language; interviews with teachers; interviews with students; observations of classroom practice, and publications/websites concerning the institutes. Great attention has been paid to the triangulation of the data, i.e. the extent to which information originating from these sources leads to a specific perception of the given area, making the description more complete and objective. The choice of the effective institutes is based upon the results of the lowest level of the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT; A2-level CEFR) examination as the students, typically without any existing knowledge of Dutch, reach this level within the first year of their studies. To describe the video/audio recordings of an “as-normal-as possible” teaching week, an adapted version of the taxonomy of the Dutch Inspectorate for Education is used. In the descriptions short transcriptions of these recordings are provided in order to give as accurate as possible a picture of the lessons that were delivered. In the last chapter the future trends are also described. The pillars of this study are: the didactic preconditions, organisational setting, content of the curriculum, and didactic approach of the teacher. Regardless of the history, size, sort, or specialisation of the institutes, the key to their effectiveness seems to be the combination and the complementary character of these pillars. It was concluded that there are many ways in which an institute can be effective. It can be seen e.g. that the selection of students prior to their study of Dutch plays an important role in five of the institutes and three of the institutes have stringent selection criteria during the study period as well. However, there is still one effective institute for the teaching of Dutch as a foreign language where no explicit selection procedures are applied. The general conclusion reached is, then, that what matters and should be greatly stimulated is the quality of the teachers. Even though they do have their reservations e.g. with regard to making/applying institutional policies, they make a great effort to improve the effectiveness of their teaching. At the end of the day the teachers are the ones in contact with the students and the ones who are (or should be) making sense of the teaching. That is why it is essential to have good and motivated teachers who are able to compensate for the missing or insufficiently realised elements of the teaching programme.