Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

ets and had invitations to a Christmas celebration, which incidentally also showed the
parents how much English they had learned in a very short time – between the summer
and Christmas time in the first year. Yet another school paid attention to Halloween.
Outside the classroom
Here are some examples of EIO activities outside the classroom. Schools go to English-language
performances (e.g. drama or pantomime) or go to a museum in the
Netherlands which offer English-language tours (e.g. the Wonderkamers in The Hague
http://www.wonderkamers.nl ). Many schools invite an English-language theatre company
to come and do drama workshops with their children, e.g. the Phileas Fogg company
(http://www.phileasfogg.org.uk/). At one school, all the tvmbo students go on an
exchange visit; at another, students go to a “kids club” in Stratford-on-Avon for five
days; another school goes to Finborough Hall (http://www.kgadventure.com/ and
http://www.klubxperience.co.uk/html/finborough_hall.html), where they do practical
and outdoor activities such as a scavenger hung with clues to solve a mystery and a
night walk. The coordinator found the latter very appropriate for tvmbo students, because
it was active.
One school is involved in a Comenius project about immigration and has exchanged
teachers with schools abroad, from Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Some schools
have well-established exchanges where a small number of students go to Greece and
Spain.
In Figure 5.8: Short trips to the UK, we describe how two schools organize short visits
to Canterbury and Dover.
Future EIO
Some of the schools, since they have only just started tvmbo, mentioned that they have
lots of plans in the making but that EIO still needs to get off the ground. The TTO coordinators
realise that EIO for tvmbo is somewhat different from that in tvwo; for example,
the visit to a cathedral to hear evensong did not motivate tvmbo students very
much! Schools are looking for ways of creating EIO activities which are more relevant
Figure 5.8: Short trips to the UK
At one school, all of the 1 st and 2 nd years go to Canterbury in UK. They leave school
on a Thursday at 5am and are back on Friday afternoon. The groups stay one night in a
youth hostel, and then explore the town until about 16.00. They then visit evensong at
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