Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

7 Conclusions and recommendations
7.1 Introduction
In this final chapter, we summarize the conclusions of the research project. We also
propose some recommendations for schools working with tvmbo or starting up a
tvmbo stream, as well as for future research.
7.2 Conclusions
Advantages
There are many advantages of CLIL for bilingual tvmbo, such as the preparation of
students for their future careers and cross-cultural communication with other English
speakers. This is shown both in the literature study (Coyle et al, 2010) as well as in the
interviews and the responses to the online surveys. Tvmbo gives opportunities, too, for
students to work on their vocational literacy and vocational language proficiency
(Vollmer, 2006). It also appears that motivation increases in vmbo students who enjoy
a challenge.
Reasons for tvmbo
From our study, we can conclude that there are several reasons why schools start
tvmbo. We have learned that schools believe that bilingual education will help students
in their future workplaces – with vocational literacy (Vollmer, 2006). We have
also learned that schools want to provide opportunities for vmbo students and that they
feel internationalization (EIO) is advantageous for them. The one area where the
teachers and students disagreed was that of reasons for choosing tvmbo. Teachers believe
that students choose the school or that parents choose for them, but the students
themselves indicate that they want to learn English for their future and because it is a
world language.
Organization of tvmbo
The five schools in our study carry out tvmbo in different ways and we cannot say at
this stage which way of organizing tvmbo is better or worse – in the regular lessons or
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