How we teach Dutch My name is Rafael Willems, *12-02-1963, and I'm living in my place of birth Maastricht (NL) now. While I was studying to become primary school teacher, back in 1993, I started to teach Dutch to foreigners. I have been doing this the last fifteen years, and meanwhile I grew conscious of a few things. Among others: * Fun is a conditio sine qua non. To put it differently, you can't memorize boring things and you can't learn when you don't feel good. Education means communication, interaction, which implies mutual interest. * Vocabulary and grammar are the bricks and mortar of a language, and they are in no way taboo, lest they are presented the right (playful) way. * Conversation about things of interest to the pupil is the best way to learn, but start talking only when you know the basic rules of a language. You always get both oral and written feedback to what you utter. * Last but not least: by using a wide scale of means - e.g. children's books, papers, songs, films - you'll catch everyone's attention and learning will be more intense. A language lives in its everyday conversations, its papers, its television programs, its songs, its stories, its plays and games; why not use them all? You'll learn much faster when language situations change a lot. Certainly, there are many books that'll teach you Dutch - some of them good. Still I think none of them uses all the possibilities mentioned above. So I tried to do the job and write a book that does: Waterval ("waterfall"). The two of them come with CDs, containing conversations, listening exercises and Dutch songs, and a web site containing computerized exercises with meaningful feedback. This is how we do it. Do you want to know more? Ask: Rafael Willems Dopplerdomein 2D - 6229GN Maastricht T +31 - (0)43-3616072 M +31 - (0)6-41029302 info@aloco.nl