The importance of a near-native accent. This talk will discuss whether or not it is important for EFL-teachers to try and achieve a near-native generally accepted accent for their students. The focus will be on the credibility of non-native speakers of English while speaking English in a globalising world, with a heavy or mild foreign accent. These days and in the future more and more non-native speakers of English will communicate with each other in English. For a native speaker it is not that difficult to understand a non-native speaker speaking English with a lot of local or regional phonological interferences. For two non-native speakers of different origin, both speaking English with a mild or heavy accent, it might be more likely that confusion about what is being said occurs because of the foreign accent. Research (Shiri Lev-Ari &, Boaz Keysar, Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility, 2010) proves that a near-native accent adds to the credibility of the speaker. In the Netherland most EFL-teachers were trained to speak English with an RP or GA accent. As soon as they start teaching students in secondary education they accept “World English” and most teachers do not pay a lot of attention to pronunciation mistakes made by their students, as long as they can get the message across. During the talk the audience will be asked how important they consider a near-native accent is, what mistakes they accept and don’t accept and in which way teaching pronunciation is an issue in their lessons. Some sound samples with typical mistakes the Dutch make while speaking English will be presented and discussed to see if the audience consider them to be confusing or not. Then a strategy, using phonetics as a tool, will be presented to help correcting a few typical mistakes. session type : talk (30 minutes) Audience; EFL teachers & teacher trainers
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It will be hard to find a Dutchmen under 50 years old who is not able to understand and speak English. Dutch pupils in secondary education spend about 4 hours a week studying grammar, reading texts, listening to conversations and giving presentations, all in English and that for four to six years. They even study cultural and historical aspects of the English speaking world. Music, films and playing online-computer games all add to a better understanding of the English language. The quality of most Dutch vowels and consonants are quite close to the quality of many English vowels and consonants. Most of the time an English utterance produced with Dutch vowel and consonant qualities will still be easily understood by native speakers of English. Phonological interference does not automatically make a Dutchman’s English unintelligible. However, why is it so easy to recognise a Dutchman as being Dutch while speaking English? Would it not be worthwhile to try and achieve a near-native accent for our pupils and students?
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Tweetalig onderwijs (tto) is bezig aan een opmars in Nederland. Maar wat houdt het nu eigenlijk in? En wat is het verschil met de andere veelgehoorde afkorting CLIL?
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Ethnographic fieldwork is a balancing act between distancing and immersing. Fieldworkers need to come close to meaningfully grasp the sense-making efforts of the researched. In methodological textbooks on ethnography, immersion tends to be emphasized at the expense of its counterpart. In fact, ‘distancing’ is often ignored as a central tenet of good ethnographic conduct. In this article we redirect attention away from familiarization and towards ‘defamiliarization’ by suggesting six estrangement strategies (three theoretical and three methodological) that allow the researcher to develop a more detached viewpoint from which to interpret data. We demonstrate the workings of these strategies by giving illustrations from Machteld de Jong’s field- and text-work, conducted among Moroccan-Dutch students in an institution of higher vocational education.
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Background to the problem Dutch society demonstrates a development which is apparent in many societies in the 21st century; it is becoming ethnically heterogeneous. This means that children who are secondlanguage speakers of Dutch are learning English, a core curriculum subject, through the medium of the Dutch language. Research questions What are the consequences of this for the individual learner and the class situation?Is a bi-lingual background a help or a hindrance when acquiring further language competences. Does the home situation facilitate or impede the learner? Additionally, how should the TEFL professional respond to this situation in terms of methodology, use of the Dutch language, subject matter and assessment? Method of approach A group of ethnic minority students at Fontys University of Professional Education was interviewed. The interviews were subjected to qualitative analysis. To ensure triangulation lecturers involved in teaching English at F.U.P.E. were asked to fill in a questionnaire on their teaching approach to Dutch second language English learners. Thier response was quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Findings and conclusions The students encountered surprisingly few problems. Their bi-lingualism and home situation were not a constraint in their English language development. TEFL professionals should bear the heterogeneous classroom in mind when developing courses and lesson material. The introduction to English at primary school level and the assessment of DL2 learners require further research.
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Posterpresentatie op conferentie Introductie: De afgelopen twee decennia is er geen communis opinio over de vraag of er sprake is van regionale factoren bij de constituentvolgorde in de Nederlandse Gebarentaal (NGT) (Coerts, 1994; Crasborn & De Wit, 2005; Vermeerbergen, Nijen Twilhaar & Van Herreweghe, 2013). Dit onderzoek levert een bijdrage aan de discussie over constituent-volgorde in het algemeen, doordat werd onderzocht of constituentvolgorde in NGT verschillend is voor eerste- en tweedetaalverwervers van de NGT. Methode: Er namen tien participanten (studenten NGT aan de Hogeschool Utrecht) deel: vijf dove moedertaalgebruikers en vijf horende studenten (leeftijd 19-30 jaar). Productie werd uitgelokt van drie verschillende typen enkelvoudige zinnen aan de hand van plaatjes (Volterra et al., 1984): 6 zinnen met omkeerbare constituenten, 6 zinnen met niet-omkeerbare constituenten en 6 locatieve zinnen. Alle 180 geproduceerde zinnen werden getranscribeerd en syntactisch (Subject, Object, Verbum) geanalyseerd. Resultaten: De moedertaalgebruikers gaven duidelijk de voorkeur aan de volgorde SVO of SVOV bij omkeerbare zinnen en SOV voor niet-omkeerbare zinnen. Voor de locatieve zinnen werd veel variatie gevonden, met een lichte voorkeur voor OSV. De T2-verwervers vertoonden veel variatie in de productie van omkeerbare zinnen zonder duidelijk patroon. Voor de niet-omkeerbare zinnen werd een lichte voorkeur voor SOV gevonden en wederom variatie. De loca-tieve zinnen werden voornamelijk uitgedrukt in de volgorde OSV. Conclusie: Deze studie toont aan dat de constituentvolgorde van moedertaalgebruikers en T2-verwervers verschillen. Opvallend is dat de T2-verwervers de neiging hebben de regel voor locatieve zinnen ‘Het grootste element voorop in de zin’ te overgeneraliseren naar het type niet-omkeerbare zin.
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Hoe dichters dichten sullen ende wat sie hantieren sullen (ca. 1330) van Jan van Boendale leent zich bij uitstek om scholieren een literair-wetenschappelijk onderzoekje te laten doen. In deze tekst legt Boendale uit waaraan een goed verhaal en een goede schrijver moeten voldoen. Zijn puntsgewijze uitleg zorgt voor een helder en begrijpelijk betoog. Hiermee kan de leerling zelfstandig aan de slag met een middeleeuws literair boek: hoeveel 'Boendale-aspecten' vind je terug in de door jou gekozen tekst? Hoe meer aspecten je ziet, hoe beter het verhaal past binnen de middeleeuwse poëtica, hoe mooier de middeleeuwers het verhaal gevonden hebben.
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Presentatie op congres The Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) is a tool for assessing functional sign language skill. Based on the Language Aptitude Test, it uses a recorded 20 minute conversation between a skilled interviewer and the candidate. The interview uses an ad hoc series of probing and challenging questions to elicit the candidate’s best use of the sign language in topics relating to the candidate’s work, family/background, and leisure activities. This video language sample is then analyzed to determine the candidate’s rating on the SLPI Rating Scale. The rating process documents vocabulary, grammar and discourse, and follows a specified protocol that includes specific examples from the interview. The SLPI is used widely in the US and Canada with American Sign Language, and one of the presenters has adapted it for use with South African Sign Language. The presenters have recently adapted the SLPI for use with Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). While the interview process is the same regardless of the sign language, two aspects of the adaptation for NGT required work: 1) modifying the grammar analysis to match NGT grammar; and 2) modifying the Rating Scale to align with that of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR). This ICED presentation will include: 1) a thorough description of SLPI goals, processes and implementation; 2) modifications for NGT grammar; and 3) modifications to align with the CEFR.
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In 2020 hebben drie docentonderzoekers (Irene de Kleyn, Mariska Dinkelman en Marleen IJzerman) vanuit het lectoraat Meertaligheid en Onderwijs een inventarisatieonderzoek opgezet en uitgevoerd onder een representatieve afvaardiging van lerarenopleiders en studenten van de internationale varianten van de lerarenopleidingen Duits, Engels, Frans en Spaans van Instituut Archimedes (IA) die zijn gebundeld onder “Teacher Education” (TeacherEd). Het onderzoek had als doel inzicht te krijgen in de rol/plek van meertaligheid als leermiddel, leerdoel en context in de verschillende curricula van de TeacherEd.
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Learning and acting on social conventions is problematic for low-literates and non-natives, causing problems with societal participation and citizenship. Using the Situated Cognitive Engineering method, requirements for the design of social conventions learning software are derived from demographic information, adult learning frameworks and ICT learning principles. Evaluating a sample of existing Dutch social conventions learning applications on these requirements shows that none of them meet all posed criteria. Finally, Virtual Reality is suggested as a possible future technology improvement.
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