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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L2 pronunciation training should unequivocally be linked to complex daily life experiences (Derwing 2017). Each client comes from a different background, participates in a different environmental context and engages in different activities within those contexts (Threats 2008). This is a particularly challenging aspect in the L2 practice (Derwing 2017). The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, also known as the ICF-Model (WHO 2001, 2013), offers a conceptual framework that acknowledges the intricate dimensions of human functioning and incorporates personal and contextual factors that can influence participation in daily live (Heerkens and de Beer 2007; Ma, Threats, and Worrall 2008). This paper provides an exploration of the application of this model to pronunciation and intelligibility difficulties in L2 learning. We apply the model to a specific L2 learner, Mahmout and demonstrate how its use allows for consideration of factors much broader than the phonological or phonetic challenges Mahmout faces. Mahmout must be able to generalize that what he has learned into functional communicative competences to improve his participation. The ICF-model (WHO 2001, 2013) is used globally in a broad array of healthcare professions, including Speech and Language Therapists (SLT’s). Yet, it is not a customary tool, nor probably an obvious one, used by L2-professionals (Blake and McLeod 2019). Of course, our goal is not to classify pronunciation problems of L2 learners as disabilities. The model proves a useful tool to view the individual L2 learner as a whole, and part of a larger system. It may allow L2 professionals to tailor their intervention to the individual’s needs and situation and will consequently be able to establish priorities in instruction to enable appropriate goal setting for each individual (Blake and McLeod 2019). It allows identification of influencing barriers or facilitating factors within the stagnation or improvement of pronunciation (Blake and McLeod 2019; Howe 2008).
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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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The Dutch overestimate their English speaking skills. Their pronunciation is not always convincing and certain pronunciation mistakes are easily recognised as being typical for Dutch speakers of English. Although intelligibility cannot exist without adequate pronunciation, teaching English pronunciation at Dutch secondary schools is often absent from the EFL teaching curriculum. Focussing on the most prominent pronunciation difficulties, often caused by the mother tongue (L1), will benefit the non-native speaker’s pronunciation and intelligibility. In order to provide teachers with a time-efficient approach to teach English pronunciation, preliminary research is needed to establish the most prominent error types in the English pronunciation of secondary school pupils and bachelor students in the Netherlands. Research shows that fifty percent of the subject group makes seven types of pronunciation mistakes in more than fifty percent of the cases that such mistakes could be made. The conclusion discusses a general approach for addressing the kind of pronunciation problems we identified.
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De vraag wat Bourgondische letterkunde is, is niet eenduidig te beantwoorden daar ruimte en tijd van invloed zijn op de definitie.
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On a four-year bachelor course at Inholland University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, additional modern language was offered to first-year students studying at three locations. Since each location only had a few students and there was only one language teacher available, across the three locations, lessons were given by the teacher in a ‘hybrid’ classrooms. The teacher was at one location with some students while students from the other two locations would join via live video link. The focus was to develop speaking and listening skills through in-classroom discussion that took place via the video link. Short video news segments in the language were watched live in class. This lead to discussion and practicing the language. Learning support materials were available in the form of a grammar book with an online self-test learning environment. The research group conducted research on this original and creative solution to teaching smaller groups since much could be learned from a practical, didactic and organisational perspective. Several organisational issues influenced the course. And from a pedagogical perspective, this case supported findings from the literature that it is complicated to engage with students live in a classroom while also communicating with students at other locations via a video screen.
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In today’s foreign language (FL) education, teachers universally recognise the importance of fostering students’ ability to communicate in the target language. However, the current assessments often do not (sufficiently) evaluate this. In her dissertation, Charline Rouffet aims to gather insight into the potential of assessments to steer FL teaching practices. Communicative learning objectives FL teachers fully support the communicative learning objectives formulated at national level and embrace the principles of communicative language teaching. Yet, assessments instead primarily focus on formal language knowledge in isolation (e.g., grammar rules), disconnected from real-world communicative contexts. This misalignment between assessment practices and communicative objectives hampers effective FL teaching. CBA toolbox The aim of this design-based PhD research project is to gather insight into the potential of assessments to steer FL teaching practices. To this end, tools for developing communicative classroom-based assessment (CBA) programmes were designed and implemented in practice, in close collaboration with FL teachers. Rouffet's dissertation consists of multiple studies, in which the current challenges of FL education are addressed and the usage of the CBA toolbox is investigated. Findings reveal that assessing FL competencies in a more communicative way can transform teaching practices, placing communicative abilities at the heart of FL education.
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In response to globalisation and internationalisation of both higher education and the job market, The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) has seen a considerable increase in English-medium courses, i.e. non-language subjects taught through English. Internationally, the rise of English-medium instruction (EMI) has led to research on, and discussion about the possible side-effects of a change in instructional language. More specifically, whether using a foreign language as the medium of instruction has a negative impact on teaching and learning. This paper reports the findings of a pilot research project into the implications of English-medium instruction (EMI) as perceived by students and teachers of the bachelor program Commercial Economics at the Faculty of Business, Finance and Administration at THUAS. Research methods used to collect data include face-to-face interviews with both students and lecturers involved in EMI subject courses, a student questionnaire, and lesson observations. Despite regular exposure to English and an adequate self-perceived English proficiency, results show that a considerable number of students, as well as teaching staff are experiencing difficulties with English-medium instruction and that for many EMI is not as efficient in transferring academic content as instruction in the mother tongue.
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Background: Accurate measurement of health literacy is essential to improve accessibility and effectiveness of health care and prevention. One measure frequently applied in international research is the Short Assessment of Health Literacy (SAHL). While the Dutch SAHL (SAHL-D) has proven to be valid and reliable, its administration is time consuming and burdensome for participants. Our aim was to further validate, strengthen and shorten the SAHL-D using Rasch analysis. Methods: Available cross-sectional SAHL-D data was used from adult samples (N = 1231) to assess unidimensionality, local independence, item fit, person fit, item hierarchy, scale targeting, precision (person reliability and person separation), and presence of differential item functioning (DIF) depending on age, gender, education and study sample. Results: Thirteen items for a short form were selected based on item fit and DIF, and scale properties were compared between the two forms. The long form had several items with DIF for age, gender, educational level and study sample. Both forms showed lower measurement precision at higher health literacy levels. Conclusions: The findings support the validity and reliability of the SAHL-D for the long form and the short form, which can be used for a rapid assessment of health literacy in research and clinical practice.
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TNO gebruikt Informatie en Communicatie Technologie (ICT) om producten en diensten toegankelijk te maken voor iedereen, dus ook voor speciale doelgroepen zoals gebruikers met verminderde cognitieve vaardigheden. Hierbij zetten we vaak spraaktechnologie in. Een voorbeeld hiervan is de elektronische reisassistent voor mensen met een verstandelijke beperking. Deze reisassistent kan relevante informatie voorlezen door gebruik te maken van spraaksynthese. Een ander voorbeeld is een elektronische coach voor kinderen en ouderen. Door de inzet van spraakherkenning en spraaksynthese kan op een natuurlijke manier met de e-coach gecommuniceerd worden
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