Language and education

Getting to the CoRe – Subproject 3

Embracing Dutch through collaborative Listening and Reading: A receptive multilingual Approach in Second Language Learning

One of the problems for international students and employees is the potential language barrier in Dutch, which is the main language for meetings and administration in higher education (KNAW, 2017). For this reason, a special course for international students and staff on receptive Dutch used in meetings and administration was created at the Utrecht University. Focusing on this receptive course, the present study investigates what the characteristics are of an effective teaching approach aimed at the development of receptive language proficiency for multilingual meetings in academic settings. [Click here for the English webpage / Klik hier voor de Engelse webpagina]

Methodology

In order to contribute to this research, this paper compares the perspectives of the course designers, stakeholders and course teacher on using a Receptive Multilingual Approach for learning a second language receptively. That is, this paper explores the relationship between the intended and implemented curriculum of the Receptive Dutch course. Data consists of stimulated recall interviews with the course participants and teacher, classroom observations, functional adequacy analysis, and language proficiency tests. 

Get to know the researcher

The third subproject is conducted by PhD Candidate Kimberly Naber (k.naber@uu.nl). She graduated with a Master of Arts by completing Intercultural Communication. With her PhD, she aims to explore to what extent a receptive approach in foreign language teaching can improve the communicative effectiveness in receptive multilingual settings to create a more inclusive international environment.

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