How a language policy develops and grows: Secondary education

This practical study (talentwedaagse, 2007) portrays how the Redingenhof adjusts its language and language courses policy because of the growing number of multilingual immigrants and the decline of the abstract cognitive language skills among native Dutch pupils. The school places specific emphasis on the micro, meso and macro levels.

Developing 'language quests', providing the necessary learning and remedying tools, the use of keyword registers, the optimization of the professionalization of the teachers, the adaptations of the lesson tables, the introduction of English in the bso, working with streaming "In the tso, the development of a" Special Language Class "and the appointment of two language coordinators are just a few of the structural and substantive changes that the Royal Athenaeum has implemented in recent years.

Kaat Vandensavel from the KA "Redingenhof" in Leuven presents the language and language policy at her school; she discusses the role of the GOK team, the pedagogical-didactic and personnel-policy initiatives.

A selection of the policy measures of this school: level assessment Dutch, entrance tests for Modern Foreign Languages, cooperation with the business world, supporting ICT material, intensification of choice guidance, provision of learning and remedial tools, etc.