It has been a long time since I sent out my last newsletter.
A lot has happened in that time. I'll talk about that in a moment, but first: the CNaVT exams are coming up again! You can register from February 14 (until March 14 at the latest). The exams themselves are in the first half of May. If you want to register and/or practice, just let me know!
What happened here? Well, I had a very serious surgery in August and it took a long time to recover, but I'm back!
During my recovery period I also had a huge project, but luckily there was Nikkie Menting, she wanted to be my intern and that was great, she was my head, my legs and my technical helpdesk…
During the project mentioned above, we are normally in a castle for 10 days with 5 Dutch and 5 German journalists. Within that time, they must learn the other language well enough to be able to write articles or make television programs in the host country.
This year it was online.
Nikkie wrote the following about it:
Hello! My name is Nikkie Menting, and I study Dutch as a Second Language and Multilingualism at the University of Amsterdam. Last summer I did an internship at Learn Dutch Fast, to learn more about the unique way Sylvia teaches.
This internship was recommended to me by another NT2 teacher, who told me that Sylvia teaches with a lot of creativity, songs and gamification.
That indeed has been my experience during the live lessons that I have joined at Learn Dutch Fast. Sylvia is not a traditional 'teacher', but uses people's existing knowledge and interests to teach them Dutch. She supports people in this, sometimes assuming the role of a good friend and sometimes the role of a coach.
Sometimes she invites other people to the class, so that students also build a network of others with whom they can practice their Dutch. She also has a lot of unique tailored material and ensures that students feel comfortable and curious about what they have to learn.
Because she teaches at home, I also got to know her 'animal friends', and while walking and geocaching I enjoyed the beautiful surroundings. That's why I sometimes had a bit of a holiday feeling despite the hard work.
Together with Sylvia, Annika (German teacher, Dutch teacher & journalist) and Sylvain (French teacher, the mentor of the group) I helped organize the online German course for Dutch journalists. It was a special course in which the possibilities for online interaction were stretched to the max.
I made a lot of material for the course, and I loved the results! We walked every day and did all kinds of speaking assignments via the video call on Whatsapp, such as questions, walking bingo and even prepared a presentation.
I often took Sylvia's dog Mister along and got lost several times because speaking German, walking a dog and video calling is quite a challenge in terms of multitasking!
In the morning, students read the newspaper together,
then we continued with all kinds of language assignments and games and in the afternoon we read a special play, in which we all got to play the role of our 'German self' (including new last name!).
In the evenings, there were online guests, of which a journalist who talked about German politics was my favorite guest. We all laughed heartily at the German commercials of political parties, which are so different than in the Dutch ones.
It was a tough week for the teachers, for me and for the students. Twelve hours a day of ZOOM class is tough for everyone, but because there was so much variety in the activities, and because we sometimes got up, had to run and went for a walk, it was good.
In the evenings, I fell asleep with German still ringing in my head, and I learned a lot. One of the German guests said: Nikkie, you can never say you don't speak German anymore after this course! I therefore agree with another participant:
Both as an intern and as a student, this course was a gift!
Nice right? Nikkie is no longer an intern, but a great colleague & friend 😉 She also has a tip for you, it is a very good preparation for the exam, so I'm sharing it here:
The 'language learning with Netflix' website (https://languagelearningwithnetflix.com/) now has a new name: https://www.languagereactor.com/. I can recommend this website to everyone. It's a Chrome extension; a program that is in your web browser and then works on other websites.
Once you've downloaded it, you can turn on double captioning on Youtube and Netflix, so you can easily learn new words. You can filter on different levels, and all words that are above your level are colored. Then you know it's normal if you don't know those words yet.
You can also click on a word, and you will get the translation in your language.
How do you use it?
1. Download the extension
2. Find a Dutch film/series that you like.
3. Set your native language as a second language, and see how many words you already know (approximately).
4. Watch the entire episode/movie, and make sure you understand the story. Don't focus on individual words just yet. Don't get the (clue of) story? Go back a bit and read the subtitles in your native language.
5. Watch the entire episode/movie again. Look at the Dutch. Do you understand what it says? Are there any new uncolored words?
- a. Don't you understand the sentence? Look at the translation. Are there new uncolored words in it? Are they important? Write them down and later make flash cards (with phrases from the movie! 🙂). Look differently at the translation, and at the individual words in the Dutch sentence. Sometimes the translation is different than you expect, or sometimes the translation is not exactly the same. Then you can continue watching.
- b. Don't understand an uncolored one? Click here.
You get the translation. Is this word important to you?
Make flashcards of it later.
- c. Can't understand a colored word?
- i. It is important? Then make flash cards.
- ii. It isn’t important? Read the translation in your language, and skip it.
You don't need this word at your level yet!
6. Have fun learning new words!
PS. Do you want to do something extra with the film/series you have seen?
Find a Dutch forum and join a discussion, or read/write a Dutch review!
So much for Nikkie's guest blog. She is now temporarily in India, you can book online lessons with her 
My own lessons are now mainly offline again, with many walking days and exam trainings, private or in very small groups. Maybe I'll see you here again? That would be fun!
Lots of love, stay healthy!
