Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

Good tvmbo teachers use (nearly) 100% English in the classroom and carry out consequences
if students do not use enough English. They are good at telling stories. Their
English is good and they correct the students’ English. They can also adjust their own
level of English to their students’ level. Good tvmbo teachers want to develop themselves
further in terms of English and CLIL methodology.
Good tvmbo teachers give their students special, personal attention and have a strong
personality and a good voice. They provide lots of structure by talking slowly, asking
questions and giving good explanations. They are able to make contact with their students
and have a ‘feeling’ for working with vmbo students. Good tvmbo teachers can
assess the ability of the students, both in terms of language as well as in terms of content
Language awareness
One very interesting finding from the interviews with the students is that they are very
much aware that they are learning English as well as content. ‘At the start, we knew no
English’, one student says: they are very aware of how much language they are learning
and how their own language progresses.
Outside the classroom
A lot of tvmbo students believe that they learn a lot of English in their daily lives, outside
school, through the use of English in the popular media, especially the computer
and Internet. This is not only receptive – listening to songs or reading texts – but also
interactive, in terms of writing and speaking to other English-speakers on the Internet.
This shows that tvmbo students are very capable of communicating in English even in
the first years of tvmbo.
Teacher and student motivation
Tvmbo students are perceived to be more motivated than regular vmbo students and
create a positive classroom atmosphere, which, in turn, motivates the teachers working
with them. Teachers working in the tvmbo stream are also enthusiastic, motivated and
ambitious.
Choice of tvmbo
There are many reasons why students choose to join a tvmbo stream and the results
from the interviews are not clearly conclusive. From the interviews, we cannot pin-
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