Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

other ways and other contexts. Teach reading strategies such as using headlines and
accompanying visuals as clues to the content of a text. Start with working on receptive
skills (reading and listening and watching), and move on to productive work (speaking
and writing).
English outside the classroom
Verspoor et al (2010) did an extremely interesting study about how much pupils learn
English at school or in contact with English in their lives. They studied how much a
lack of English outside schools (in strictly religious communities and schools – in
Dutch reformed schools) can be compensated with bilingual education. Verspoor et al
looked at the role of English outside school in Dutch students who are learning English.
The authors found a significant correlation between productive skills and contact
with popular modern media and, by the third year, there was also a significant correlation
between productive skills and vocabulary and popular modern media. So encourage
your learners to use the popular media in English, to watch English television and
use the Internet.
Writing
Ensure that students write about the topic they are working on; start with simple, short
but realistic writing tasks (a postcard, a mind map). Support writing by using scaffolds
(see glossary) such as charts or tables: these help students to organize their writing.
Talk with your students about how to organize their writing. Think about your writing
aims in the lesson and formulate and share specific writing aims, for example this anachronous
task: ‘At the end of the lesson, learners can write a short email to a friend as
if they were a Viking on a ship travelling from Norway to England.’ Give them different
audiences for writing (a parent, magazine readers, someone looking at a poster).
Vary the types of text they write (e.g. letter, brochure, part of a website, postcard, article).
Provide models of the sort of writing that you expect from your students, so that
they see examples.
Interaction
Encourage speaking as much as possible. Think about your speaking aims in the lesson
and formulate specific speaking aims, for example ‘At the end of the lesson, learners
can describe what they are wearing’, ‘Learners can tell about how the Vikings went
to England’. Start off with short, simple speaking tasks and gradually move to more
complex ones. Get students working in groups on interactive speaking tasks, so that
they rehearse spoken language and get used to talking with each other.
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