First student language institute graduates

VLISSINGEN - On Thursday the 28th of March Language Institute Mondo in Vlissingen grants a diploma to the first student of this Institute to pass the exam. Mondo provides private lessons in the Dutch language to foreigners.

Mrs S. van der Toorn of France is married to a Dutchman and works for Eastman in Middelburg. “She wanted to improve her Dutch pronunciation, fluency and idiom”, says Mrs M. Doppegieter of Mondo. Dutch as a second language (NT2) is divided into 5 levels. Level 1 is for absolute beginners and level 5 is at university level. The training consists of listening, speaking, reading, idiom and grammar. Mrs van der Toorn prepared for the “staatsexamen NT2” ,which is held in Rotterdam, with specially designed teaching material. She was the first student of Mondo NT2 to graduate.

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Dutch lessons for foreigners successful

by Ellen De Vriend

VLISSINGEN - For businessmen with Dutch connections or for foreigners who want to build a new life in The Netherlands it is essential to master the Dutch language. This is the opinion of Monique Doppegieter of Vlissingen. Recently she started private lessons in the Dutch language.

Mrs Monique Doppegieter has been a teacher of Dutch for over 20 years. She has worked at primary schools and at an adult education centre, but she has also worked with people from other cultures. She found it a challenge to teach Dutch to AMA’s (young asylum seekers) at Scholengemeenschap Scheldemond in Vlissingen. She thought there are not many opportunities in this part of the country to attend private lessons in Dutch. Therefore she started her own language institute at her place in the Offenbachlaan in Vlissingen.
During an intake Mrs Doppegieter carefully looks at the student’s personal wishes. Some of them do not know any Dutch at all, others just have to brush up their pronunciation. By means of a CITO test the level of each student is determined and the appropriate teaching material is chosen. This may consist of books and workbooks, cassettes, software or video’s. The students get a made- to- measure training: whether it concerns a training in fluency or writing skills. In the meantime Mondo has students from all over the world, e.g. executives of French companies in Vlissingen-Oost, a Greek girl studying at Hogeschool Zeeland and people from Vietnam, Brazil and Canada. Some of them come to Mondo through the “inburgeringscursus van het Bureau Nieuwkomers”. Each lesson lasts an hour, which is long enough, according to Mrs Doppegieter. “If lessons last longer it gets difficult to concentrate properly”.

Homework
Students have 1 to 4 lessons every week and also have to do homework. Every day 4 students can have lessons at Mondo. This may not seem quite a lot, but every lesson requires an equal amount of time to prepare. “Our language is rather difficult. The main problems occur in the intonation, short and long vowel sounds, the “ng” sound, the use of particles and sentence structures” , according to Monique.