Advancing Dutch Through
Intensive Instruction:
Planning for Success with
Backward Design and Social Media
Language Matters Series
Texas Language Center
Vince VanderHeijden
15 February 2012
Outline
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Specific Context of Dutch at UT
Backward Design
Using Social Media
Initial results
Dutch at UT
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6 hours 3 times per week
Lower-division courses only (604, 612)
Zomercursus Nederlandse Taal en Cultuur
Testing
Operating Principles
1. The Classroom is for interactive practice
2. Students learn as much from each other as from
instructor
3. Students are informed partners in instructional design
Operating Principles
The Classroom is for interactive practice
 Mechanical practice occurs at home
 Homework = practice and preparation
 At least 4 interactive activities per lesson
 Brainstorming, role-play, information-gap, jigsaw
Operating Principles
Students are included in instructional design
 Homework is explicitly connected to each day’s
objectives
 Each day’s objectives are included in the homework
 Most lesson planning occurs before the homework is
posted
Backward Design
 An orientation to planning and instructional design
which emphasizes transferable skills and learning.
 It begins at the end
http://www.josephjyoung.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/yelloebrickroad.png
Backward Design
 Three questions:
 What should my students know, understand, be able to
do at the end of the course/unit? (Goals and outcomes)
 How will I know they’ve hit their targets? (Assessment)
 How will I help them get there? (Instruction)
 Understanding by Design
 Wiggins & McTighe (2001, 2006)
Backward Design
 What are the outcomes? What’s the end?
 Students will engage with a variety of personal interests in
Dutch and relate these interests to a Dutch context
 Students will develop skills of interaction and inquiry which
reflect emerging independent language learners
 Students will write at approximately an Intermediate-High
level (ACTFL, 2012) , with emergent Advanced low features
 Cohesion
 Paragraph-length
 Expansion beyond present-time into past time as well as
conditional/irrealis
Backward Design
 How will I know they’ve hit their targets?
 What kind of evidence will be acceptable?
 Preferably from authentic, performance-focused activities
 What kind of activities will provide evidence of the ability to
write cohesively?
 How will I know whether students can interact and
investigate in ways which deepen their language learning?
Backward Design
 How will I help them get there?
 Student focused instruction
 What are the students doing ?
 Why are they doing it?
 What does it have to do with the outcomes?
Affordances of Social Media
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Breaking the “Fourth Wall”
Sandbox for experimentation
Personalization
Multi-modal
Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication
Community Building
Audience
Why Google Plus?
 Hybrid of Facebook and (Micro)Blogging
 Social network
 No limit on post length
 Allow for easy linking of external resources (media,
content)
 Multi-person video chat
 Instant Messaging/Chat Capability
A Rationale for (micro)Blogs
 Fellner & Apple (2006), Chapelle (2001)
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Language Learning Potential
Learner Fit
Meaning Focus
Authenticity
Positive Impact
Practicality
Enhancement
Google Plus
Google Plus Circles
Expectations
 Contribution types:
 Share discoveries
 Pose hypotheses
 Respond to original posts
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Elaborate
Challenge
Introduce
Inquire
Rubric
Frequency of posts
Advanced contributions,
Exceeds expectations
High Intermediate,
Very good contributions
Meets minimum acceptable
expectations
Still beginning Dutch user,
does not meet expectations
Super user: demonstrably more
than one post a week
Engaged user:
approximately one post per week
(sem. total 9-11)
Average user: less than one post
per week, but still a regular
contributor
(sem. total 7-8)
Incidental user: approx. one post
every two weeks (or fewer)
Few original posts. Reactions to
existing threads are cursory and
generally focused on one’s
personal response.
These posts tend to describe and
explain.
Unintelligible or irrelevant
commentary. Links to external
content are provided without
comment or context.
Basic errors are still frequent
(conjugation, word order, pronoun
use, etc.).
Occasional success with complex
sentences.
*Errors do not interfere with
understanding of message
Frequent reliance of a mix of
English and Dutch. Frequent
spelling errors (also in verb roots).
Text is more a string of sentences
than a cohesive group
Basic structures clearly not
mastered.
Errors impede intelligibility.
(semester total >12)
Quality of posts
Language:
Structure
Language: Lexical
and stylistic
sophistication
High number of original,
substantive contributions, while
actively responding to classmates’
posts with insightful, helpful
comments and questions.
They reflect, apply, inquire and
relate.
Actively contributes to furthering
the conversation by interacting
with posts initiated by others.
Original posts, while less common,
provide unique and interesting
information. They also reflect and
inquire, but more often describe
and explain.
Very clear command of basic
Strong fundamentals. Complex
structures. Frequent, correct use of sentence structure is used, though
complex sentences. Commonly
with less frequency and accuracy.
attempts to incorporate new
New structures attempted though
structures as they are learned in
systematic errors still occur.
course
Exclusive use of Dutch.
Evidence of broad range of
vocabulary. Highly accurate use of
high frequency words. Consistent
(and accurate) integration of new
vocab. Very coherent writing.
Highly infrequent appearance of
English. Very good range of
vocabulary. Occasional errors in
word choice or spelling/plurals
(u/jij, schippen/schepen).
Occasional use of coherence words
to connect text
(sem. total <7)
More reliance on English than
Dutch, Frequency of errors (word
choice and/or spelling) impedes
understanding.
Sample Prompts
Yesterday we mentioned the Elfstedentocht. For more
background information, I’m posting a number of links about
the “Tour of tours”. No one is yet certain if the race will be
run, but Frisian authorities are planning to make it possible.
So a few questions for you:
 How long is the route?
 Where does it take place?
 How many participants are there?
 When was the last Elfstedentocht?
 What other questions do you need to have answered about
the tour?
Sample Prompts
This article has to do with coffee and your generation.
What is the trend in the Netherlands? Do you agree with
the reported opinions of Dutch young people? And
what about the sustainable production of coffee—do
you think about it when you order your cup at
Starbucks?
 http://nos.nl/artikel/336156-is-de-koffiedrinker-eenuitstervend-ras.html
Sample Prompts
My brother has a darling little girl of 4. This weekend he shared a
YouTube channel he found with a huge collection of children’s songs.
His daughter is apparently crazy about these videos (even though she
can’t speak a word of Dutch). Some are simple Dutch versions of wellknown English songs. Others are old but still popular songs such as “’k
Zag twee beren.” The text for the first verse follows.
What do you think about the song? Can you write a new verse? All you
have to do is substitute the bolded words for your own. Add your own
verse in the comments!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSpkSu2PVyw
Results
 Mike
Ik hou van idiomen! Ik vind hen interessant. Ik onderzoek graag en hou van
vinden waar ze vandaan komen. Het is interessant dat "donder" is een
woord gebruikt. Het is een grappige woord in Engels vertalen. De woord
"donder" is "thunder" in Engels. De idioom is "by thunder" in Engels maar
dat is een heel oud idioom. Ik wil oude idiomen weten in Nederlands. Ik wil
de evolutie van idiomen in Nederlands zien.
 Jeff
 Ik vind dit heel interessant. Een interessant ding met de taal van nederland
is "God Verdomme". In Engels zegt wij "God Damn it" maar in nederlandse
ze verdomme zelf. De bedoeling is hetzelfde, maar het zou betekenen dat
heel anders in het Engels. De verschillende manier waarop we zinnen
zeggen in de taal is zeer interessant.
Results
Is de koffiedrinker een uitstervend ras?
Madelyn
Jonge Nederlanders drinken weinig koffie omdat het te bitter is, volgens het artikel. Maar koffieconsumptie groeit licht in
Nederland en zou in de komende jaren blijven groeien.
Ik drink heel weinig koffie omdat ik veel thee drink. Thee heeft minder cafeïne en ik denk dat thee beter smaakt. Ik ben
geïntereseerd in duurzame productie, dus ik denk erover veel na. Mijn mening is dat veel mensen er niet over nadenken.
Het artikel zegt dat meer mensen voor duurzaamheid zullen zorgen. Bedrijven zullen naar de klanten luisteren en
duurzamer worden. Zal deze koffieconsumptie vergroten? Denk je dat duurzaamheid echt belangrijk voor klanten is?
Julia
Ik denk dat jonge Amerikanen heel verschillend zijn. Wij drinken koffie regelmatig. Waarom? Misschien koffie geeft
energie, maar misschien koffie is echter een comfort voor studenten en werkers. We hebben andere werkende mensen,
studenten, en onze ouders koffie drinken gezien. Deze mensen hebben druk gehad. Als ik drink koffie, heb ik druk ook. De
koffie drinkers in Nederland lijken over hun koffie smaak en kwaliteit zorgen. Misschien hebben ze niet op elke hoek een
Starbucks.
Madelyn
Het is ook interessant dat ontbijt meer belangrijk voor Nederlanders is. Als ik elke dag een hele ontbijt at, zou ik meer
koffie drinken. Ik denk dat thee makkelijker te maken en goedkoper is, dus het is beter voor mijn korte, bezige ochtenden.
Toen ik werkte in de zomer dronk ik meer koffie. Dus, ik ga volgens Alma (zij zei dat koffie een comfort voor werkers is).
Het is goed wanneer je moe bent, zoals vroeg in de ochtend bij je kantoor.
For the future
 Google Plus as a social network allows for
synchronous CMC as well
 Chat
 Hangouts (video conferencing)
Hartelijk bedankt!
vdheijden@mail.utexas.edu