Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

Foreword
Teaching in bilingual junior secondary vocational education or bilingual tvmbo is special:
it’s different. Students who choose vmbo learn in different ways from those in
bilingual vwo (pre-university education) or havo (senior general secondary education):
they need more variety in terms of activity and are motivated by real-life tasks and
personal contact. They like to move and to make and to create. So teaching these students
in English is also different.
This research project aims to look at good practice in tvmbo: What is working now?
What skills and knowledge do tvmbo teachers need? What works in the classroom?
What type of European and International Orientation (EIO) is appropriate for tvmbo?
It is written for schools which have just started or which are considering starting a
tvmbo stream and which are interested to know what type of bilingual education is appropriate
and effective for vmbo students.
Bilingual education has been part of the Dutch education system since 1989, there
being 123 schools with 150 bilingual departments at the time of writing. The first
school to start experimenting with bilingual junior secondary vocational (or tvmbo)
departments began in 2004 and in the past few years there has been a movement to introduce
bilingual education into more vmbo departments. The first ‘official’ tvmbo
streams opened in 2009. There are now fourteen schools which have already started
bilingual education in vmbo: twelve of these schools teach through English, and two
through German. The growing network of interested schools which have started or
which are considering starting bilingual education in vmbo – members of the tvmbo
network - numbers twenty-seven schools.
Anna van Rijn College in Nieuwegein invited the Centre for Teaching and Learning
(ex-IVLOS) at Utrecht University to carry out this short-term (200 hour) research project
on behalf of the network of tvmbo schools in order to look at good practice in
tvmbo. The research question was Welke handreikingen voor succesvolle vormen van
tweetalig vmbo (tvmbo) kunnen gegeven worden op basis van onderzoek en ervaring?
or, in translated loosely into English, What are teacher’ teachers’ and students’ opinions about
good practice in bilingual junior secondary vocational education?
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