Bilingual Primary Education in the Netherlands: teaching processes and learning outcomes

In many European countries English is taught as a foreign language in primary education from the age of 6. Language exposure in school is usually limited to a few hours per week. Twenty schools in the Netherlands have recently implemented a bilingual partial immersion program, in which 30-50% of lesson time is taught in English. Most classroom teachers involved are advanced-level non-native speakers of English; some are native speaking specialist language teachers. As language exposure and interaction opportunities are considered influential factors for language acquisition, it was investigated how teachers' language proficiency level and classroom language exposure and interaction related to pupils' language proficiency. Twelve schools participated in a longitudinal study, in which teacher and pupil data were collected in year 1, 3 and 5, and compared with control school data (1 hour of English per week). Of each participating teacher, two lessons were observed, transcribed and analyzed in terms of pedagogical approach and language use. Results were related to pupils' receptive vocabulary knowledge as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) and oral productive language use as measured by a picture narration task. Individual characteristics such as out-of-school exposure to English and parents' SES were taken into account. Results show that pupils in the experimental bilingual primary education condition outperform pupils in the control condition. Analyses indicate that pupils' language development relates to teachers' language proficiency, amount of exposure and pedagogical approach. Implications will be discussed with respect to partial immersion curriculum implementation and teacher professional development.