Online training for Dutch teachers worldwide

Videochat tool graphicsThe online training for teachers of Dutch (FL / SL) is about to be concluded. In this training, teachers of Dutch learn how to use the SpeakApps tools themselves and how to create tasks for students who can practice their oral skills online. This course started in October and ends at the beginning of November.

In the last six months, SpeakApps has been presented at different conferences in the Netherlands and Belgium. The last presentation was at the conference of the International Association of Dutch Studies (IVNNL) in Antwerp.

This conference is held every three years and is hosted by a Dutch-speaking university in either Belgium or the Netherlands. It is being visited by more than 350 participants representing more than 200 universities world-wide where Dutch is offered as a BA- and/or MA-programme, as a minor / major or as a language course. The most important topics being offered are literature and culture of the Low Countries, linguistics and didactics. SpeakApps was presented as part of didactics.

The presentation was visited by more than 60 attendees from all over the world. Thanks to the positive reactions, the University of Groningen decided to offer an online training to teachers of Dutch as a Foreign Language, so that they can work with the tools themselves before possibly implementing SpeakApps in their regular language programme in 2013.

Interested participants who visited previous SpeakApps presentations earlier this year (BVNT2 in June 2012 and NUT in March 2012) were also asked to do the online training. More than 35 teachers from different countries (Indonesia, Slovakia, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Spain, United States of America, Germany) signed up for the online training. Attention will be paid to oral production with Langblog, and oral interaction with Videochat and Tandem.