Thursday , March 28 2024

Workshops on Dutch as foreign language

Dutch Taalunie organized a “Dutch as a Foreign Language Nederlands als Vreemde Taal NVT” workshop on St. Eustatius and Saba last week. The participants were all teach­ers of primary and second­ary education, who teach Dutch.

The objective of the workshop was to iden­tify questions and needs regarding NVT education. The workshop was fol­lowed by class visits.

Based on the findings from these visits and the input of the teachers during the work­shops, the Ministry of Edu­cation, Culture and Science and Taalunie will consider what is required for suc­cessful NVT education on St. Eustatius and Saba.

As part of the transition to English as language of instruction in education, proper consideration is giv­en to the Dutch language, which has the status of “strong foreign language.” After all, the islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and annually a group of pupils set off to the European Netherlands for further education.

The guiding principle of English as language of instruction is that this transition should not be detriment to a good command of the Dutch lan­guage. NVT material has been developed for forms 5 through 8 of primary edu­cation and for classes 1 and 2 of secondary education in the past three years, in col­laboration with Taalunie, by order of the OCW.

On St. Eustatius a local work group is currently working on the creation of NVT material for the youngest. Dutch as a foreign lan­guage is the term for Dutch language education for non-Dutch speakers outside the Dutch language area.

The Daily Herald.

Plasterk asks patience of islands’ pensioners
Financial prospects for Saba positive

One comment

  1. Elvis Levenston

    I fully agree to have English as the language of instruction in the schools on Saba,but in the mean time the Dutch language should be giving more hours in the schools so that the children could also know Dutch on a higher level. On the French side I heard the President of government speaking English and then he went on with his speech in French maybe we can see how they do it over there.