Current developments in bilingual primary education in the Netherlands

Abstract

This contribution addresses two studies of the processes and outcomes of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Dutch primary education. Firstly, this article describes a preliminary study of the learning outcomes at the end of primary education, comparing pupils’ language proficiency after either two years or six to eight years of low-intensity EFL programs. Secondly, it describes the outcomes of a subsequent classroom observation study in a high-intensity bilingual primary education pilot in grade 1, focusing on teacher language use and teacher-pupil in-teraction. Results are related to learning outcome in terms of pupils’ receptive vo-cabulary knowledge. Conclusions focus on foreign language teaching in primary education in general, and bilingual primary education in particular.