Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

4 Short factual online survey: results
4.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the results of the initial short factual online. The five schools
which were involved in the interviews responded to this short online survey about their
bilingual stream.
4.2 Why start tvmbo?
The schools were asked for the reasons why they started tvmbo. The reasons given
were varied, even across five schools. The responses show that schools want to give
vmbo students the chance to learn in English, for their future workplaces:
• “To speak English is not only an advantage for the happy few but also for the
car driver, nurse at the hospital, the car mechanic or the workers in tourism.”
• “Kids will get jobs in which they need to communicate in English as well.”
For two schools, opening a tvmbo was an expansion of their existing bilingual vwo
stream: they could use the already available tvwo expertise to benefit the
vmbo/mavo streams. One school explained that they do not have a tvmbo stream, but
call it versterkt talenonderwijs. The school wanted to give students to have more
English (30%) and, very importantly, more internationalization in their curriculum.
Another school wanted to attract more pupils as a marketing ploy and to provide better
opportunities for pupils. One school stated that they considered CLIL methodology
a better way to learn English than regular English classes.
4.3 Aims of tvmbo
The aims of the tvmbo streams which have already started are also varied and
linked to the reasons to starting tvmbo. We summarize these below.
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