Sacred Heart School students master Dutch language

Femke Neunzig (25) is the young teacher Dutch on the Sacred Heart primary school. When she started working on Saba some two years ago, most students did not have a good level in Dutch. For many children Dutch was not their favorite subject. Her challenge was to turn the Dutch lessons into a fun experience. Using music appeared to be a successful way to change the atmosphere. Now the children have fun in the classes and they work hard to master the Dutch language.

In her lessons, she is using novel technologies. She has a lot of success with songs in Dutch that she writes herself. In addition, as a volunteer, she develops Dutch lessons for “Dutch under the Sun”, a teaching method that is used on Saba, Statia and St. Maarten.

Now, after two years, most students have an A1 level in Dutch. Recently some students were even ready to take an A2 level test and several completed the test successfully.  A great achievement of these hard working kids.

Femke created a “juffen page” on Facebook called Edufem . There she publishes videos and pictures of the students in class, depicting them speaking Dutch or writing their own Dutch songs. In this way, parents also can chime in.

Edufem