Bilingual education is provided all over the world. In the Netherlands, this form has been around for over 30 years and is called the most successful educational innovation.
The mission of TTO is to let students excel at all levels by increasing their language skills and broadening their international orientation.
It goes without saying that TTO at Schakel College will not be adopted one on one from the Dutch concept. The environmental characteristics of the Caribbean differ and require that TTO be approached from a different perspective.
In this context, it is also better to speak of multilingual education at the school with a focus on Dutch-English. In this way we can develop education that connects with our students and meets the demands of the changing world.
The introduction of TTO is a multi-year plan. For the first phase, we have allocated 3 years to July 2023 to achieve our objectives step by step.
Teachers already work with TTO-related teaching methods. In the coming years we will invest in the further development of modern contemporary education based on the 3 pillars: language skills, global citizenship and personal development.
What you will see happening in the school in the coming years for these 3 pillars:
1. Language skills
The students speak Dutch and English at a high level and can move in different international and / or intercultural settings.
- CLIL didactics (Content and Language Integrated Learning) are an important tool to achieve this. This is the didactics behind TTO and includes a communicative and language conscious approach in all lessons. In practice, attention is paid to active and activating lessons with an emphasis on language acquisition, a varied output (both written and oral) and teachers provide targeted feedback on the output.
- We are going to work according to the target language-language principle. It is effective to use the language that is learned - the target language - as the language of instruction in the lesson.
- There is teaching time in different languages of instruction:
- year 1 to 3 Instruction language distribution: approximately 45% Dutch / 30% English / 5% Spanish / 5% Papiamento / 15% Optional working time (the student chooses which language requires extra attention).
- Students can obtain international certificates to demonstrate language level, such as Cambridge Certificates.
2. Global citizenship
Pupils develop an open, broad view of the world. This is done by making the connection with the world, bringing the world in, but also entering the world.
We do this through, among other things: TTO projects, study trips and (local) excursions and cooperation projects with foreign schools / companies.
In the school we develop a learning pathway for global citizenship with internationalization aimed at skills that come within the various lessons.
3. Personal Development
Personal development is inextricably linked to the first 2 pillars. The pupil grows as a person and learns to reflect, to be involved, to take responsibility, to have an inquisitive attitude, to think creatively and critically and to be enterprising and resilient. We do this through numerous targeted activities in all fields.
TTO is additional to regular education in Aruba and has its own extra costs. This is partly due to: the required in-service training of teachers at home and abroad (language skills training, CLIL), external consultant(s) who guide us in this process, purchase, among other things, English-language materials, extracurricular programs (excursions, study trips), exchanges and cooperation projects, membership of the TTO network, the required TTO-coordinating infrastructure, the additional quality requirements that TTO imposes on the level of the professional organization.
Schakel College has become a member of the Dutch TTO network Nuffic. To obtain the TTO quality mark, the school must comply with the TTO quality process. Visits are an important part of this process. In addition, each TTO school contributes to the network by having one or more representatives of the school work together within the network.
We regularly coordinate the development of the TTO policy and the course of the implementation process with the representatives of the Aruban Education Inspectorate and the Directorate of Education
The policy plan: the path to bilingual education (Dutch-English) at Schakel College from a multilingual perspective is available for inspection at the management.
