ORANJESTAD – A delegation of 20 Statian primary school teachers, principals and board members have attended a summer school on the teaching of Dutch as a Foreign Language (Nederlands als Vreemde Taal, NVT) during their first week of holidays. This summer school was the third edition of the Statia NVT Zomerschool and once again took place in Ghent. It was the biggest edition so far, both in terms of participants and in terms of program.

The summer school is organised by Adriaan D’Haens, language education specialist and instructional coach specialized in Dutch as a Foreign Language: “The Statia NVT Zomerschool is a beautiful example of how the Statian primary schools take charge of the professionalisation of their teams and evolve towards more efficient and effective language teaching through their own commitment.  The summer school has become an annual meeting place where teachers from different schools from the island join forces to improve their NVT skills. With high-quality workshops, inspirational presentations and job-shadowing during the summer school as well as instructional coaching afterwards, we aspire to an integrated approach and lasting impact.”

Because of its success with the Statian educators, the Statia NVT Zomerschool was able to grow and now features parallel sessions for teachers in the different phases of primary education. Separate presentations, workshops and job-shadowing opportunities were also organized for the principals and board members who took part. This year’s workshop topics included vocabulary teaching, integrating picturebooks into the NVT classroom, Comprehensible Input, scaffolding and phonological awareness. The zomerschool also featured a fair with publishers and educational organizations such as Boom, Edufax, Erasmus+ and Eenvoudig Communiceren, giving the Statian participants the opportunity to explore teaching materials and other opportunities for teaching and learning Dutch.

City of Ghent

The Statia NVT Zomerschool 2023 ran from 10 to 14 July in Ghent and is an initiative of Adriaan D’Haens, language education expert and director of TILLIT Language Academy. It is organized in collaboration with the primary schools of St. Eustatius and the City of Ghent and benefits from the support of Erasmus+. More information can be obtained by mail: [email protected].