Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen - Volume 22, Issue 1, 1985

This article sets forth the aims and principles of 'Van horen en zeggen1, a Dutch course for foreign children from 6 to 12 years of age, published by the 'Werkgroep Nederlands voor anderstaligen' in 1983-84.Each of the 20 lessons is built around a theme, related to the class, the neighbourhood, the family, holidays, etc. Within a theme a meaningful situation has been chosen, like an arithmetic lesson, street-games, changing clothes before the gym lesson, in which functional language is presented.Systematic attention is paid to the sounds, the vocabulary and the grammar of Dutch. Each lesson ends with some questions which enable the teacher to evaluate the pupil's language.

In this article some results are presented of a twofold study into the Dutch language proficiency of Turkish children who were born and bred in the Netherlands. The oral Dutch language 'profi-ciency of eighteen Turkish and fifteen Dutch children was studied in September 1981, at the moment all children entered primary school, and in March 1984, when they had reached third grade. A number of morphological, syntactic and lexical features were studied. The results can be summarized as follows:(1) in the first grade, at the very start of their (primary-) school career, the Turkish group is significantly less proficient in oral Dutch than their Dutch peer group in all but one of the grammatical features.(2) In the third grade, after two and a half years of primary school education, the Turkish group is still significantly less proficient in oral Dutch than the Dutch group in most of the features.(3) As for several morphological aspects of oral Dutch language proficiency, most of the individual Turkish children progress faster in two years of education than the Dutch group: that is, many of the Turkish children are morphologically less behind after two years of primary school than at the beginning of their school career.(4) As for a number of syntactic aspects and one aspect of lexical diversity of speech, most of the individual Turkish children do not progress faster in two years than the Dutch children: syntactically they are equally behind after two years of primary school.(5) In none of the features that were studied did the differences in language proficiency between the Dutch and the Turkish groups increase during two years of schooling: thus, no evidence is found for a possible cumulative difference between this specific group of second language learners and native children.

Recently, numerous studies evaluating bilingual education programs have shown that cultural orientation and language attitude play an important role in achieving sufficient proficiency in both first and second language. Despite a long tradition . of research in the field of attitude measurement, no test is readily available measuring cultural orientation in young second language learners. In the present article a description is given of the development of such a test for Turkish and Moroccan children learning Dutch as a second language in primary school. The test is based on Zirkel and Jackson's (1974) Cultural Attitude Scales.The reliability and validity of the test have been investi-gated in two studies. In the first (Buster et. al. 1985) 850 children were tested, and their scores on the cultural attitudes scales were compared to other measures that might reflect cultural orientation (questionnaires, sociograms) and to language proficiency tests. The reliability appeared to be fairly high, but there was no significant relation between cultural attitudes and language proficiency.In the second study (Verhoeven & Extra 1983) cultural attitude scales were used with individuals rather than with groups. Test scores were compared with data from interviews with the children tested, their parents and their teachers. On the whole this study suggests that the validity of the cultural attitude scale is sufficiently high. If certain requirements (e.g. regular revision because of the changing socio-cultural setting) are met, the cultural attitude scales appear to be a useful instrument in bilingual education research.

After an introductory discussion of some data concerning the transition of ethnic minority children from primary to secondary education in the Netherlands and after a short exposition about the role of language in teaching-learning situations, some recent Dutch projects are discussed, in which data have been gathered relating to verbal interaction in multi-ethnic school classes. Such data have also been gathered in the project "Dutch as a second language and school success at the end of primary educa-tion" which is being carried out at the Subfaculty of Letters of Tilburg University.Some characteristics of the classes in which the research is being done are discussed as well as the way in which the data concerning the verbal interaction in the classes are collected. Some of the results of the observations in the participating classes are presented, and compared with the results of other research projects (especially Van der Geest et al. 1984 and Koot et al. 1985). The first results seem to suggest that although Mediterranean children are given more turns than other ethnic groups, they tend to speak less because they regularly fail to make use of such opportunities. Besides, they initiate a verbal exchange less often than Dutch and ex-colonial children, which is something that teachers are hardly aware of. Finally the differences between the observed classes are dis-cussed.

In this article the results of an explorative study of the Dutch language proficiency of advanced second-language learners are presented. The proficiency in Dutch of a group of 17 students from non-indigeneous linguistic minority groups was compared with the Dutch proficiency of 17 native age-mates. In each group, 16 of the 17 students went to a 'MAV0', an intermediate level of secondary education. Their Dutch language skills were measured by analyzing spontaneous language samples and by administering some tests. In general, the second-language learners (the A-group) were shown to have a lower Dutch language proficiency than the native students (the N-group), and especially with respect to their scores on the tests. It was tentatively concluded that the students from the Α-group had a Dutch language deficiency in the area of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. Their Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (the concepts CALP and BICS are borrowed from Cummins' theoretical framework) were more or less similar to the skills of native Dutch students. Students from linguistic minority groups might succeed in higher levels of secondary education if their CALP were brought to a higher level, since CALP correlates strongly with the kind of language proficiency demanded in school.

The Entrance Test (Instaptoets Anderstaligen) aims to assess the proficiency in Dutch of 9- to 16-year-old ethnic children to facilitate gearing subsequent tuition to their needs. From the assessment of what skills a pupil masters or does not master (satisfactorily) the teacher derives guidelines for tuition. The various phases in the development of the tests are marked by a successive emphasis on the question of objectives, the test item format, the interrelations among the various subtests, the final set-up and, lastly, the use of the test in education. The involvement of educational practice stands out as a feature of the development of the instrument. Generally speaking, the test's users prove to be quite satisfied.

Young immigrant adults may have difficulties in schools because of a lack of literate skills in the second language, viz. Dutch. If they are confronted with texts that are too difficult for them they may stagnate in their (literate) language development and even drop out of school.Teachers with and without experience in teaching Dutch as a sec-ond language ranked a number of fragments of Dutch school-books as to degree of difficulty.All teachers believed that only the lowest difficulty level was appropriate for all their pupils (Dutch and immigrant). They differed in their judgement as to the appropriateness of the subject matter of the texts.An analysis of the texts with respect to linguistic features led to the definition of three levels of difficulty, correspon-ding to the three first grades of the secondary school. On the whole the texts are for Dutch natives. Immigrant pupils probably use certain strategies to compensate for evident lack of text comprehension at the micro level of a text (word know-ledge, sentence structures etc.)

Language acquisition research is dominated by three major hypotheses: the innate hypothesis, the cognitive hypothesis and the interactive input hypothesis. An attempt is described to find support either for one of the first two or for the third hypothesis in a pilot study of the effects of two teaching methods of Dutch as a second language. One method employed a communicative approach in an experimental group of 12 learners, the other method a linguistic approach in a control group of 8 learners. The dependent variables were linguistic (word order, conjugation, vocabulary, length of utterance, word deletion, etc.) and interactive (15 subvariables). The results suggest that the learners in the experimental group made more progress than those in the control group, thus providing support for the interactive input hypothesis. Plans for future research are presented.

In this text five focal areas for teaching Dutch as a second language to adults are discussed. The first two areas derive from a didactic cycle that calls for a discussion in series: insights into language needs are necessary - although insufficient - prerequisites for defining and choosing educational objectives. In turn, only operationalized educational object-ives make it possible to select and grade course contents at the level of words, utterances and texts.Both the definition of language needs and educational object-ives (§1), and the selection and gradation of course contents (§2) are necessary pre-activities for our third perspective: the development and use of textbooks and tests (§3). For using textbooks, too we need a discussion in series, running from registration, description, and evaluation to selection of text-books. In our section on developmental activities, we also pay attention to different tests for measuring second language proficiency of adults.Research needs are our fourth focal area for teaching L2 Dutch to adults (§4). In this section we go into several research themes and into their relevance for L2 teaching. Our last perspective derives from public policy with respect to L2 Dutch (§5). We focus on existing government provisions and conditions, and on main policy plans with respect to teaching Dutch as a second language to adults.

The tests of the "Certificaat Nederlands" ("Dutch Certificate") are proficiency tests. They require the examinee to perform functional language-use tasks in situations that approximate as closely as possible the conditions under which these tasks are carried out in real life. These tests are curriculum-free in that they do not depend on any specific course or didactic method. Three levels of proficiency have been defined (elemen-tary, basic, advanced). The linguistic contents of the test is circumscribed by specific wordlists (Elementaire Woordenlijst, Basiswoordenboek) en by a taxonomy of verbal abilities which includes a description of the verbal performances at the three levels.The tests of the "Certificaat Nederlands" are direct tests of the four skills: reading, listening, speaking en writing. They are first of all designed as face- and content- valid represen-tations of the kinds of language situations at issue in real-life language use. The immediate consequences of this choice for test format, text selection and test evaluation are discussed.

The Free University of Amsterdam offers refugees preparing for university in the Netherlands a special course called the Preparatory Year for Refugee Students (VJV). The aim of this course is twofold:- to upgrade the proficiency in Dutch and English and in some subjects (mainly mathematics) and to provide them with the study skills necessary for Dutch university;- to make them familiar with Dutch society in general and Dutch universities in particular.In this article an attempt is made to develop a method which can help teachers to acquire some insight into the combination of factors responsible for the success or failure of a student.Three reasons are discussed why a student might fail at a certain task: insufficient proficiency in Dutch or English (the language factor), insufficient knowledge of subject matter (the content factor) and inadequate mastery of study skills (the study skills factor) .The main point made in the article is that these three factors interact; in the VJV it is important to distinguish between these interacting factors both when assessing students at the beginning of the pre-sessional course and when actually preparing them for university. Ideally, teachers should be able to unravel these factors i.e. to analyse students1 products in terms of their separate effects.Two examples of the interaction of these factors are given:taking notes during lectures, which is practised in the Dutch lessons, and solving a mathematics problem.

The Delft Method is a so-called 'natural' method: the material corresponds as much as possible to the way in which people learn their first language. Characteristic properties of the material are: 1) integral presentation of the basic grammar at the beginning of the course, 2) presentation of a large and well-selected vocabulary, 3) complex lexical and grammatical exercises, 4) constant feedback, 5) absence of grammatical terminology.The Delft Method, as used at Delft University of Technology, is meant for students aged about 18, has a very high tempo and presupposes a lot of independent student activity. The course material is also used by students outside the university, coming from a much younger age category, having a considerably lower level of education and proceeding at a slower rate. A first comparison of the results shows that the method is natural enough to be successfully used by very heterogenous groups. Differences in the time used can be explained partly by differences in experience in studying: in this view people trained in studying learn a second language faster than could be expected ?by nature'.

At the Projectafdeling Culturele Minderheden (Cultural Minorities Department) of the Rotterdam Schooladviesdienst (Educational Ad-vice Service) language programmes are being developed, aimed at preparing the second language speaking 16+ group for vocational training courses.The programmes can be split up into a general basic programme and various specific follow-up programmes. In order to establish the entry and the target levels of the programmes, the following activities have been undertaken:1 analysis of the proficiency that may be expected from existing beginners programmes, which has determined the entry level of the basic programme;2 analysis of the language requirements that the participants on the training courses must meet, from which the target levels of the follow-up programmes have been derived.A third activity that has been undertaken is to determine the syllabus design, i.e. which skills can be distinguished; which steps have to be taken within each separate skill; which unit of organisation is to be adopted. In connection herewith, the rele-vance of the communicative approach has been examined, especially in the light of the numerous publications on syllabus design which this approach has yielded.In this article a number of aspects of the communicative approach and communicative syllabus design are treated, namely the suitability of the approach for different types of courses, the position of grammar within the approach, criticism of the approach, and some alternatives of the notional/functional syllabus. Finally the relevance of the approach for the development of second language programmes is evaluated.Some conclusions are, that for several reasons the notional/func-tional approach has not been adopted. Build-up schemes for each of the four skills and grammar have been devised instead. These separate schemes are interrelated during the actual programme de-velopment. Grammar is partly integrated in each skill and partly practised in isolation in the form of language awareness activities. An important asset of the communicative approach is the suggestion to carry out language needs analyses. However, no use could be made of a model like Munby's, as it did not suit the purpose. The supposition is put forward that the communicative approach has more to offer in the field of methodology than in that of syllabus design.