Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

There are three main reasons why CLIL (content and language integrated learning) has
been stimulated in vmbo schools. Firstly, vmbo students will work in English in their
future jobs – in hotels, or in international transport or ICT, for instance. English is a
world language and many people – not only native speakers – use English to communicate.
Secondly, more and more primary schools are giving content lessons in English.
And thirdly, senior vocational schools (ROCs) are offering more and more
courses solely in English. So bilingual vmbo seems to be a logical step between the
start in English made at primary school and senior vocational studies in English.
1.3 Why this study ?
All of the reasons mentioned above are anecdotal: there has been little or no research
done into good practice – or what really works - in bilingual vmbo. Hence this study.
There are two main reasons why we carried out this research. Firstly, we wanted to
look into what tvmbo schools can learn from experiences around the world, through a
short literature study. Secondly, we wanted to look systematically, through the use of
interviews and online questionnaires, at what is working in tvmbo in the Netherlands
and what is considered to be good practice.
1.4 Definition tvmbo
Tvmbo or bilingual junior secondary education is used as a broad term here. It indicates,
for this study, that at least 30% of the contact time between teachers and students
is in English (see Appendix 1: Standaard Europees Platform tweetalig vmbo).
Some schools might also call this versterkt taalonderwijs or use other terms such as
world class.
1.5 Tvmbo school network
A network of vmbo schools with bilingual departments started in 2009 and has been
set up in order to support, coordinate and advise vmbo schools which have started or
which wish to start a tvmbo class or stream. This network of tvmbo schools, in partnership
with the European Platform, has developed a quality ‘standard’ for tvmbo departments.
The European Platform is supported by funding from the Dutch Ministry of
Education, Culture and Science and the European Commission to promote internation-
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