General and academic Dutch - intermediate level

Lower B1 level of the CEFR

The course is structured around themes related primarily to the daily life in a Dutch speaking environment, to the academic world and to the Flemish and Dutch culture in broad sense.

At the end of this teaching unit, the student will be able to :

UNDERSTAND (reading or listening) :

• the argumentative scheme of factual texts, television programmes and newspapers written in current language and related to cultural matters or contemporary problems
• academic course notes related to his field of study
• most of an academic lecture related to his field of study,
• a normal conversation

Level: B1+

SPEAK :

• expose his points of view and defend them
• keep, with some ease, a conversation or discussion with a native speaker, in standard language, on a general topic or a topic related to his field of study

Level B1+

WRITE :

• a simple and coherent text on a familiar topic which is of direct interest to him or which is related to his field of study

Level  B1-

CULTURE

• the student has a knowledge of Dutch and Flemish cultural aspects and is able to use the appropriate strategies to establish contacts with native speakers .
• the student can perceive the differences and similitudes between his own culture and the culture of the target language

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

1. Continuous assessment (class participation, daily work, individual presentation of a press article) : 10 %
2. Written assessment of general and academic vocabulary course material in a self-tuition test on the Moodle e-learning Platform : 10 %
3. Oral test at the end of the quadrimester: group presentation on a topic selected by the students related or not to their field of study, in agreement with the teacher : 30 %
4. Oral exam: individual presentation of a press reading file or a cultural file: 50 %

The Teaching Unit consists of classroom activities as well as a-learning activities.

The more general vocabulary related to daily life, to the news items and to contemporary problems as well as the academic vocabulary are presented in the self-tuition syllabus.
The specific Dutch grammatical structures are also presented in the self-tuition syllabus with exercices and key to exercices.
The revision and expansion of the general vocabulary as well as the revision of grammatical points will be exercised through oral practice activities and self-tuition tests on the Moodle e-learning Platform. This will  require the spontaneous study of the code by the student who is responsible for perfecting his linguistic knowledge.

The debates, discussions and presentations also require a certain amount of preparation by the student. Besides, the students are supposed to participate to the cultural trip.

This teaching unit aims at developing the communication practice while reinforcing the mastery of the code (vocabulary, grammar) through:

• Role plays, debates on various topics and discussions based on articles, videos
• Individual presentations  of a previously selected press article
• Group presentations on a topic related to the Flemish culture or on a topic related to the students'field of study
• A cultural trip to Flanders (visit of a Flemish town or an exhibition), chosen,  prepared and organized by the students.

• Self-tuition syllabus « néerlandais général et académique » (General and Academic Dutch) LNEER1300 - LNEER1500
• Press articles
• Videos
• Moodle e-learning Platform

Students who wish to enrol for this teaching unit must:

• have NO other Dutch class in their programme of that academic year
• receive the permission of the course coordinator at the ILV (i.e. make sure there is room left in the existing group(s))
• subsequently receive the permission of the restricted jury in their faculty in order to integrate this teaching unit into their year programme (no possibility to enrol as a 'free' student).

This teaching unit also aims at helping students to prepare their Erasmus stay in a Dutch speaking environment.

• Training staff: Classes in group of 15 to 20 students
• The teacher is available during his office hours and can be contacted by email
• Workload : 30h classroom hours
  42 hours of self-tuition