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EnfoS

Courses of English and Dutch

Ton van Hattum

Focus on adequate communication, in view of capacities and needs of each learner.

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Focus on adequate communication

Focus on adequate communication for Ton van Hattum means evaluating goals and needs of each learner and shape the course so that each pupil learns to communicate well and continues to improve communication capacities, within the context that is important for that person.

What is difficult differs from person to person. Methods and techniques are adapted to the capacities and needs that each learner presents during the learning process.

For pupils with learning difficulties, the teacher uses everything he knows, can discover and develop, to bring this pupil to the highest performance possible.

Private classes or small groups

Classes can be individual or in groups of up to six pupils. Bigger group sizes are avoided because experience has shown that bigger groups automatically break up into subgroups so the teacher needs to divide time and attention between those subgroups or spend time and energy on keeping everybody involved in one central activity.

Will I ever manage to speak that language?

One of the biggest problems of learning a new language is feeling insecure, being afraid to never be able to speak that language.

"I'll never be able to speak that language."

"I'll never learn that."

To overcome these problems several techniques are used. Learners become confident they can speak English or Dutch and start feeling they are capable of expressing themselves in that language.

Customised courses

To offer more efficient courses, they are modelled according to the goals, purposes and interests of the pupils and they are constantly adapted to the problems each pupil presents during the course.

More details on the page Customised Language Courses. icon exit-page link
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English immersion

Immersion courses are a very efficient way to improve your English. It is called immersion because you are completely surrounded by or immersed in the English language. you use the English language to learn the English language.

Details on the page: English Immersion course icon exit-page link
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About language teaching

Which English Should I Learn.

There are several varieties of English. It is a good idea to think about which variety is best to learn. Important is to know that American English is the very different one. All other forms of national English are closer to British English than to American English.

More on the page Qual inglês devo aprender (in Portuguese) icon exit-page link
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Teaching philosophy, methodology, flexibility

The best teaching is based on the philosophy that as a teacher one needs to be in continuous search of what that pupil in front of you wants and needs to learn.

One needs to use elements from different methodologies and, if necessary, develop new material and techniques to adapt the teaching to the needs of the learner. Following these principles, Ton van Hattum achieves that his pupils efficiently learn to express themselves adequately in English and Dutch. Watched are not only aspects of language use but also, maybe at least as important cultural aspects and the impact of what is being said on the social interaction.

A good teaching philosophy values much more than any method or approach.

More at the page: English and Dutch for specific and academic purposes icon exit-page link
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Communicative approach rethought

The communicative approach is based on a very interesting idea. A strong point of the communicative approach is that it focuses on the student's ability to transmit ones ideas in the target language, in this case English and Dutch. Unfortunately, the way it is often interpreted and implanted, in my opinion, doesn't quite have the result one could expect
Full text: The Communicative Approach Rethought icon exit-page link
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'Inglês Instrumental' versus 'English for Specific Purposes'

Although, in Brazil, courses called 'Inglês Instrumental' are considered equivalent to courses of 'English for Specific Purposes' (ESP) I prefer to say I offer courses of 'English for Specific Purposes' because there are important differences. participants are helped to answer questions about the presented texts. In my language courses for specific purposes, learners are prepared to deal with difficult texts and conversations in the future.

In those courses called 'Inglês Instrumental', normally a glossary is provided with each text to be studied. Like that, rather than teaching learners to deal with difficulties, difficulties are removed. It is like practising riding a tricycle expecting to get prepared for riding a bicycle. However, the most difficult part, keeping balance on two wheels, is not practised. Practising interpretation using text that come with glossaries, it is possible to learn answering question about the text but pupils do not learn how to work with unknown difficult vocabulary.

An important goal of English for Specific Purposes is to prepare learners for future challenges. Focus should be on acquiring techniques and building the capacity to deal with difficult vocabulary and idiomatic expressions so pupils get prepared for working with new texts in the future.

Teaching material

Needing teaching resources which better fit my teaching style and philosophy and because of dissatisfaction with available resources for teaching English and Dutch, I started developing my own.

Among the reasons for developing my own language education resources are these:

  • Providing learners more explanation about, why certain language forms are considered better and what the problems of using the other forms can be,
  • Offer better help with language learning in other senses,
  • The teaching style of EnfoS requires modular course ware.
  • Dissatisfaction with available resourses
More details and examples of developed teaching material at the page: Language Resources icon exit-page link
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Irregular Verbs Lists

English Irregular Verbs with phonetic transcription

Some of the English irregular verbs change pronunciation different than what would be expected from the spelling. This list of irregular verbs shows these unpredictable changes with use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (API).

English Irregular Verbs with IPA icon exit-page link
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Dutch Irregular Verbs

Although the irregular verbs of Dutch are a bit less problematic a list of them is an important recourse for learners of the Dutch language.
Onregelmatige Werkwoorden icon exit-page link
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Web design

Registering a domain name is not difficult and very worthwhile to do it yourself. Find out more about it on the following page.

Maybe more important than finding out how to do it is knowing the risks of asking others to help you with it.

Email Address Encryptor

Find out why it is important to protect an email address you place on your site by hiding it from spammers on the following page. It also has an encrypor with witch you can encrypt an email address and copy the code to place it on your site.

Email Address on Your Site, SPAM Protection, Encrypting icon exit-page link
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