“We did it together sir!”

Blog Andrew Niemeijer

“Sir, I never thought I would be able to climb this mountain, we did it together sir!” Soman is a young girl in mavo 4 of the school where I have been an English teacher for almost 20 years. Her parents fled Afghanistan — one day she wants to go back there, she tells me, shouting against the harsh north-westerly wind that is causing us to sway.

We are on top of Arthur's Seat, the old volcano in the middle of Edinburgh and Soman is halfway through a Fast Lane trip with all the students of the 4th year mavo, havo and vwo of our school. In Fast Lane English, task-based learning is central, with culture in the broadest sense of the word serving as an anchor point; from the first year to the fourth, regardless of school level. If you're good at English and like it, then you're in. In June, they will take the Cambridge Advanced exam.

The journey starts at Hadrian's Wall. There they are ordered to put themselves in the shoes of a Roman soldier and write about it. At Arthur's Seat, they are asked questions about the volcanic origins of the location. In Edinburgh, they are given the assignment to come up with a city film and city walk.

The students work in so-called Task Teams, supervised by a teacher but primarily on their own. As a result, they get to know each other better, learn to truly collaborate, and consider each other and the environment. And all this in English, the language that binds them.

This allows Soman and her friends, who are not native Dutch speakers, to speak fluently with me, each other and the locals. Full of passion, joy and confidence.

Later, as we walk through the Highlands and look at a beautiful drawing she made, she looks up and says with tears in her eyes: “Scotland is so beautiful, just like my home country. I will take my FLE classmates there one day, I promise!”

Mission accomplished.

Andrew Niemeijer (1977) is an English teacher at a secondary school. In 2009, Niemeijer was named Teacher of the Year. Andrew obtained his PhD in 2021 for War in the Classroom, a study of the effect of (war) literature as a citizenship tool in education. He gives workshops to teachers and students, in which he shows how to use literature, film, drama, poetry and prose in schools. Students are actively given ownership of a theatre and/or poetry production, with visible anchors to citizenship and social context.

VU Mother Language Day

VU Amsterdam puts language diversity in the spotlight. This makes us aware of the various languages spoken at VU Amsterdam including dialects. People get to know and understand each other better by familiarising themselves with the richness of stories and perspectives behind these languages. They discover opportunities and issues in the area of linguistic diversity. The second VU Mother Language Day will be held on 21 February 2025.