Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

siastic teachers in this group – mainly English teachers – say that they find it possible
to use English 100% of the time, including social chit chat, and that they manage to
encourage the students to try hard to use English as much as possible. They say that
they are confident about their own English and that they manage to simplify and can
talk at the level of the students.
The second group of teachers indicates that they find it more difficult to teach in English,
that they sometimes feel ashamed, for example, of their pronunciation and speaking
skills. They believe their own English level is not good enough. These teachers
feel that they lack the tools to teach these students in English, especially strategies to
encourage the students to use English themselves. At the school where lessons are
50% in English and 50% in Dutch, teachers say that their enthusiasm is diminished,
since the students talk 90% in Dutch and only a very small minority (10%) are motivated
to use English.
Teachers’ English and international examinations
The coordinators were asked about how their school works on improving their teachers’
English. At one school, once the school had decided to embark on tvmbo, all the
teachers took an online diagnostic language test (dialang, to be found at
http://www.dialang.org) to assess their English language proficiency. They also had an
interview with a native speaker to further assess their speaking skills. After that, they
had a course in classroom English with a trainer from outside the school and then a
two-hour lesson in English given by a colleague every fortnight.
Opinions about taking internationally-recognised qualifications differ between the five
schools surveyed. Some schools do not wish their teachers to take official examinations
in English; other schools insist that their teachers achieve a minimal level of English
and are required to take the Cambridge Advanced Certificate in English (CAE).
5.2.6 Assessment and tvmbo
A further question in the interviews was What are good ways of assessing tvmbo students?
In Figure 5.5: Ways teachers assess tvmbo students you can see some examples
of ways that teachers assess their students at the moment. Some teachers recognized
that assessment in English was not (yet) an issue for them: they have not really yet
thought about the consequences of assessment and testing their subject in English. Coordinators
have ideas about assessing their students but these ideas have yet to be put
into practice. They have not yet considered the impact of bilingual education on test-
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