Take a quick glance at the schedule.
Pre-requisites and target group
Our Dutch as a Foreign Language ('NT2') courses target an audience with higher education. You must have had at least 12 years of education and master the western alphabet. Both prerequisites are tested before registration.
Do you want to register for level 7? Then you will have to take a level test. The intake procedure adhered to by ACE Group T is determined by the Flemish Brabant 'Huis van het Nederlands'. This entails prospective students not in possession of an 'NT2'-certificate undergoing an interview with an 'NT2'-teacher. Based on the interview and the prospective student's level of education, the teacher carrying out the interview determines if the student is required to take an additional COVAAR-test or not. For all courses higher than level 1, the intake also entails a written part.
When selecting a course it is also important to know how many hours a week you can spend on home study. This determines whether your best choice is a course of 1, 2 or 3 evenings a week.
ICT skills
Long distance learning is a part of this course. Therefore, it is important that you know how to work with a computer. During the first class, the teacher will explain how to work with Toledo, the electronic learning platform. You do not need to have a computer at home. Both Capus Comenius as Campus Vesalius have computers at your disposal.
Course contents
This course combines traditional class time with distance learning.
In this course, you will improve your reading and writing skills, thereby becoming a more independent language user who has no problems understanding a broad range of texts, both simple and complex, and both concrete and abstract. You will also be coached to express yourself in writing in the appropriate register with fewer mistakes, more structured and clearer, more engaging, more fluent, more detailed and subtler.
Topics covered:
In past years, the following writing tasks have been addressed: a description of a place, a report on a reading, a business letter (letter of complaint, notification of a meeting, letter requesting financial contribution/payment, etc.), an opinion piece (letter to the editor and contribution to a discussion forum on the net)
The topics of the reading texts varied and included:
- Nature and ecology: clean energy
- Free time and hobbies: genealogy, computer games, reading and watching television,
- Zoos: entertainment and preservation of species
- Consumption: shopping behaviour
- Work: the problem of cultural differences in the workplace, the gender gap in the job market, a company’s annual report
- Science and research: the phenomenon of juvenile delinquency, cloning babies
- Information/advice: a brochure with instructions for fire safety
- Social circumstances: recounting texts about living and ways of life
Work formats
Generally, in class you work in pairs and the teacher coaches you in completing the exercises. During the weeks when there is no class, you post a reading task, a writing exercise on one writing issue, and a writing task. You then receive a standard solution to the reading task and the writing exercise via e-mail. You receive an individual correction with thorough remedial comments.
Course materials
Nederlands voor gevorderde Anderstaligen, textbook 1, An Wuyts, 27 euro, at ACCO, Maria Theresiatstraat 2-4, 3000 Leuven.
