The Delft method is faster

The Delft method is faster, but why is learning Dutch faster with the Delft method than with a traditional course?

What makes the system so effective? On which points does the Delft system differ from traditional Dutch courses?

Estimated reading time 14 minutes

Author: Margreet Kwakernaak – Dutch for Dummies

What makes the Delft method faster is student speaking time, teacher speaking time. and the role of grammar

I started teaching with the Delft method five years ago, but I had been teaching within traditional language learning for over 40 years. In other words, I can compare the two methods . I was introduced to the Delft method back in 2000. At the time, I found the demonstration of a Delft Dutch lesson impressive, but I continued teaching the traditional way. My students praised me for explaining grammar well and I loved it. After the grammar part, we spent time on the conversation.

Later, in 2019, one of my students stunned me. At the same time that she was in my traditional course, she studied the Delft method at home. While she was studying so intensively, she also found a job where she could practice Dutch. She reached the B2 Dutch level twice as fast as the others!

Student speaking time, teachers’ speaking time, and the role of grammar: three essential points. They make learning Dutch with the Delft method so fast.

Before starting

Before starting, I am not the creator of the Delft method, nor am I a Delft method specialist. On the contrary, I have more experience with traditional language methods. Nevertheless, I switched to the Delft method.

Let me be clear: the information in this article is not scientific. This article has three sources. My first source is the book in which the founders of the Delft method, explain their basics. Its title is : ‘Hoe leer je een taal?’ A.G.Sciarone en F.Montens, De Delftse methode. Boom, Meppel-Amsterdam, 1984. The book is no longer for sale.

My second source is a lifetime of experience as a traditional language teacher.
Finally, I have five years of experience with the Delft method. The five years are my proof that learning Dutch with the Delft method is faster.

Five years proved that learning Dutch with the Delft method is faster

Five years of experience with Delft method courses, is that enough to be certain that learning Dutch with the Delft method is faster? Absolutely, and the more experience I gain, the more convinced I become that this method is much more effective than all the other methods I’ve used.

Over the five past years, I’ve noticed that my current students speak Dutch more fluently than my previous students.

Current Suitcase talen students study Dutch 4-6 hours per week, just like the students of the past. But the way my current students study, is different.

Thanks to my enthusiasm and that of my students, my Dutch school Suitcase talen has switched to the Delft method for all Dutch A1, A2 and B1 Courses.
I am so enthusiastic, that I’d like to explain its features to you.

The essential difference from a traditional course: genuine communication

Genuine communication is the first feature that makes the Delft method faster. The prerequisite is that you take a Delft method course with conversation lessons. If you do the e-learning but don’t take a conversation class, you’re just communicating with your computer.
In other words, you are missing the essential part!

TU Delft, Nedles, and Suitcase talen offer courses using the Delft method. TU’s Delft programs are the most intensive, with Nedles courses coming in second. However, Suitcase talen‘s courses are meant for people who work during the day or care for children.

All courses offered by TU Delft, Nedles and Suitcase talen include conversation classes. In these classes, you speak Dutch with your fellow students.

It’s precisely those interesting Dutch conversations that keep you motivated. You definitely need that motivation, because you have to work quite hard to prepare for conversation class.

Let’s first look at how to prepare for your class.

Preparing before you start communicating

Certainly, your preparation takes two hours per text. Fortunately, students say studying with e-learning is enjoyable.

By using e-learning on your computer or tablet, you learn one text per conversation class. Each text contains 50 new, current, and useful words. All Delft method words have been translated into 26 languages. You can see the translation in your own language by clicking on the word.

All in all, preparing your Dutch conversation lesson is a process of listening, repeating, clicking on words to see what they mean, understanding the entire text, and repeating. After these initial steps, you continue learning Dutch by typing the correct words into gaps created in the text. Finally, you test yourself with a listening test.

**At Suitcase talen, you have two Dutch conversation classes per week**

The Delft method e-learning program is excellent for self-study. You can learn a lot of Dutch with it, but there is one thing you can’t do. You can’t have a conversation with a live person within e-learning! And that’s precisely why Suitcase talen offers conversation classes.

After you score 80% on your listening test, you are ready for your conversation class. This conversation nog only shows you whether you’ve studied well, but it’s also a chance to meet your fellow students and have fun!
First, you’ll answer the teacher’s questions. The questions are about the text and the teacher uses only the words of the text: so you’re sure to understand the teacher.

Second, you’ll have two one-to-one conversations with a fellow student, discussing the text in a more personal way. You’ll talk not only about Dutch life but also about your own international experiences. Texts cover daily life, as well as the history and geography of the Netherlands.

Nederlands voor Anderstaligen is therefore a good preparation for the Integration Exam at levels A2 and B1. Not only for the language sections of the exams, but also for the KNM (Knowledge of Dutch Society) component. Read more about this in The Delft method and KNM.

Your conversation class is online via Zoom, with one or two breakouts (a one-to-one conversation with a fellow student) per class.

Dutch people like to speak English

students of traditional courses need to speak Dutch outside of class, because there is not enough speaking time in class. Unfortunately, it is difficult for people learning Dutch learners to practice outside of class. Many of us work from home. Others are mothers of young children. When your children are very young, you leave the house mostly for shops or in the park. And then, when you try to speak Dutch in shops or on other rare occasions, Dutch people often respond in English.

You might choose the Delft method because it offers extended spoken communication in Dutch. The more Dutch that you speak outside the classroom, the better, but with the Delft system, you’ll speak more Dutch than in traditional courses.

Let’s move on to the second point where the Delft method differs from a traditional course.

Can you learn a language without the teacher talking all the time? Read all about the second characteric of the Delft method.

Second characteristic of the Delft method: the teacher’s speaking time

How much does the teacher speak in class?

Traditionally, the teacher is very important in language learning. Perhaps you loved your language teacher, or perhaps you hated the person. Or perhaps you don’t remember because it ‘s beem a long time since you’ve learned a new language. How you feel about your teacher is a personal matter.

Whatever you think of your language teacher, it’s the teachers job to help you, to see mistakes as a natural part of the learning process, to be patient with you, and not to abandon as long as you want to learn.
And that’s exactly what the e-learning gives you in the Delft method!

Learning vocabulary , listening, and some the writing- you do al or that yourself with e-learning. But you don’t talk to another person. Speaking must be done in a conversation class.

Even though the-learning has taken over most of the teacher’s work of the teacher, the Delft method still requires a teacher. And under strict rules. The conversation class is for the students. The teacher guides the conversation, but lets the students speak as much as possible.

Strict rules for the teacher

What are these strict rules? First, in conversation class, both the topic and the words the teacher uses, are limited to the text being studied. The teacher uses the words and sentences the students have learned in e-learning. The Delftse methode doesn’t allow for long personal stories from the teacher – perhaps a short anecdote, if it fits the theme.

And what about questions? Can a student ask questions? Yes, of course, that’s possible in the last five minutes of the class. And: how does the teacher explain, if it is a grammatical question? According to the Delft method, the teacher provides examples, leaving it up to the students to draw their own conclusions. These conclusions, often summarized by the questioner, can be a great help to the other students.

In short, the limited role of the teacher is essential a Delft method. Why? Because with the Delftse methode, the student is active, thinks for themselves and draws conclusions. What you learn through personal experience and discovery is something you never forget.

Let’s move on to the final difference between the Delft method and a traditional coursel: grammar. Read on about the third keu difference.

Delft method difference three: grammar

Have you ever wondered how a child learns language? Why is the first language you learned called ‘your mother tongue? That’s because as a baby, you began imitating the person slosest to you – usually your mother. She fed you, washed you, and dressed you. While she did this, she looked at you, smiled at you, and … talked to you constantly.

Your mother spoke that special language adults use to talk to babies – full of tenderness and in that special tone of voice used all over the world. Like all mothers, yours wanted you to smile at her, so she said strange words to you, in anticipation of your first smile.

Moreover, both your mother and father hoped your first spoken word would be ‘mama’ or ‘papa’. And after hearing both words many times, you finally imitated one of them. What was your first word?

Your parents’ grammar rules

Did your parents ever teach you grammar rules? Do you remember? No, of course not – they didn’t. What did they do to get you talking? They sat you on their lap, read a book with you, pointing to the pictures and told you the word: ‘cat’, ‘ dog’, or ‘car’.

After a while, you started repeating those words, pointing to the picture. In this and other ways, you learned more and more words and phrases. You didn’t learn rules,you just imitated what you heard.
And if you were lucky, your parents also read you a bedtime story.

Do you remember your parents correcting you? They might have told you the correct word if the one the one you made up, did not exist. Maybe thay did that occasionally – and maybe it helped. But even if they didn’t, your language improved as long as you heard others speak.

Grammar in your language learning process

What about grammar? Did your parents initially only talk about the present and never about yesterday or last month – because you did not yet know the words and the verb forms belonging to the past?

No, of course not – nonsense. Your parents told you what they wanted to tell you. However, they did not consider which language rules you should learn first and which ones later. They did not talk only about the present because you hadn’t learned how to form the past tense.

But this is what teachers do in traditional courses! And that’s why real communication is so difficult in beginners’ courses. For months, a teacher doesn’t ask the student: ‘How was your weekend?’ A traditional teacher only start teaching past tense grammar after more than six months, assuming, the student is unable to talk about the past without it.

But how do you learn grammar in the Delft method? The Delft method?

In the Delft method, the grammar is in the texts

The Delft method puts grammar in the texts. It’s hidden there, and grammatiical structures are repeated over and again. Verbs, plurals, word order, and all other grammatical constructions are included.

As mentioned, children learn language without grammar rules. They learn to speak by imitating. Children also discover similarities between words and word constructions, and draw their own conclusions. However, they do this unconsciously, they figure out language rules without the help of grammar books.

The founders of the method decided that language learning with the Delft method should be natural, just like children learn to speak. Students must discover similarities and derive grammar rules from spoken language themselves. We discovered grammar rules ourselves when learning our native language, so we can do the same when learning Dutch as a second language, NT2!

Grammar isn’t difficult

All of this explains why the Delft method limits the number of grammar rules. The Delft method has an accompanying grammar book, De Delftse Grammatica. The subtitle is ‘Grammar isn’t difficuIt’ This book and the accompanying e-learning course cover the essential grammar, plus a small number of exercises.

But the students participating in the optional Suitcase talen Grammar modules asked us to provice more exercises and explain more – and we did. The practice material in those modules was compiled and written by Margreet Kwakernaak, partly in the traditional way.

There is, however, one major difference from most traditional methods in Margreet’s Grammar modules. In some traditional methods, you’ll find compicated grammatical rules with difficult rules, such as, ‘Normally, in the main clause, first comes the subject and then the predicate. If the subject comed behind the predicate, we call this inversion’. Instead, Margreet Kwakernaak provices only the most necessary rules, gives many examples and uses simple words.

Let’s move on to another question you might have. Will I learn to speak correctly if I study Dutch with the Delft method?

Will I learn to speak correctly if I study Dutch with the Delft method?

It is 100% sure that when you reachlevel B1, your Dutch grammar is still incorrect. At that stage your language is never correct, no matter which method you use. It can take many years for your Dutch to be correct – or it will never be completely correct. Dutch isn’t your native language!

The Delft method states that most errors will disappear, as long as you consciously engage with the language. This theory is correct: the Delft method is a system with a scientific background.

Scientific research and 40 years of experience – the Delft method accelerates language learning.

We’ll briefly look at the origins of the Delft method and its background.

In the 1980s, large numbers of Chinese students came to TU Delft for their technical studies. In that time, all lectures were in Dutch.

How do you teach Chinese students Dutch most efficiently and quickly? The required level for understanding and participating in lectures was B2. Using traditional methods, this required at least a year of full-time study.

The founders of the Delft method were pioneers

Bondi Sciarone and his team at Delft Technical University decided to use e-learning as the most efficient way to help students learn Dutch quickly.
Sciarone’s team also tested the new exercises and features using computer programs. They created variations on exercises and compared the results.

They were pioneers, the Delft linguists – who also learned to program themselves. Today Technical University Delft teaches Dutch to hundreds of students annually. Because this process began in 1984, the Delft method is the most researched e-learning system.

After much testing and improvement, the e-learning system proved to surpass human instructors in helpfulness, patience, approval, and rejection without moral judgment, and without abandoning the student down – as long as the student continues to study.

That is what e-learning does – and, if you want, you, Margreet Kwakernaak, and your fellow students can do the rest.