Private Dutch course: in Antwerp

I had a wonderful experience during those three weeks. The teaching was very professional and at the same time friendly and encouraging. I made a lot of progress during the course.

The headmaster was highly qualified and engaged; the younger teachers were less experienced. The material was very good (e.g. the booklets for acquiring new vocabulary). The organization was a little unreliable, with changing start/end times of the classes, cancelations due to sickness, etc.The location was too cold (in winter).

The location of this program was ideal, very central. The teachers were attentive and engaged, always eager to help. The classes were quick-paced and engaging with multiple opportunities for different learning styles: classroom/in-person learning, group work, printed curriculum, on-line coursework, apps and other digital materials. The activities varied each hour which was great to maintain attention and engagement. The teachers worked hard to create a welcoming culture to support learning and interaction amongst all of the students. The school itself has everything needed to support learning.

I did not utilize the housing, so no comment on that.

I had a marvelous time. Not only did my Dutch improve (by the end of one week, I was able to read!)- I truly enjoyed myself and created friendships and connections that I hope to continue to cultivate. I adored my home stay, and was completely touched by the generosity of my host mother and co-housed student.

classes,
Good: I think the immersive nature of the lessons worked very well for me to be able to constantly hear Dutch which I do not get the opportunity to do often. The classes were for the right amount of time with enough breaks to digest.

The use of different teaching aids was really good, eg: whiteboard, a range of games, videos and other interactive exercise.

We were encouraged to use the resources and materials provided throughout the lessons as well as being taught about eg grammar and so on.

Improvement: Ahead of the course I asked via email the times of the lessons. I was told 08:30am - 1pm. That was not the case for all of the days and so this messed up my plans slightly. Suggestion: inform learners/students that they can view the schedule by going to the calendar in Moodle.

teachers,
The teachers were all very encouraging and helpful. They all stuck to speaking in Dutch and would help by providing clarification in Dutch unless someone was really struggling then they were speak in that person's language eg: English. This was a good and bad thing. For me personally I felt that I kind of held back from asking too many questions in the open forum as I fear that I also would not understand the explanation in Dutch. I understand the reason for this approach. Nevertheless the teachers were approachable and I could speak to them outside of the lessons to gain a better understanding/clarification which suited me just fine.

location,
Good: its good that the building is a very short distance from the main station and also very close to the shops/town centre.
Not so good: Unfortunately it seems like the whole of Antwerp was under construction during my visit and that affected my experience of the location. On one of the days the builders had turned off the water and the teachers/management were not aware of this until I asked how they turn the water on. Needless to say they handled the situation well and provided hand sanitizers gel and buckets of water if required.

facilities,
Overall facilities were fine no concerns other than mentioned above which was out of LABS control.

activities,
I really enjoyed and made use of the activity they provided. I was very pleased that this group outing was included during the time that I was there as I was only there for a short time and the activity provided interested me and others and I think we all enjoyed ourselves there.

housing
All good. The hosts are excellent, very friendly, very relaxed, accommodating and approachable. They work and were still able to spend time with myself and another students staying there in the evenings they spoke to us in different languages to ensure that we both understood and felt comfortable. The home was clean and they provided food which was a pleasant bonus. They did little nice things like show us the shortcut to the station, on my last day they drove me to the bus stop (the trains were not running). It was nice to not have to walk an unfamiliar distance with a suitcase. I wish I could praise the hosts more highly than I have, I think they were one of the best things about this trip and made the experience very enjoyable.

I found the whole experience very enjoyable.

The teachers, especially Charlotte (I had the most to do with her) is very professional.
You can tell she is passionate about it and she passes that on to her students.

Every day we did different activities and learned new ways to learn more about the language.
There were lots of materials to study on, apps, books, movies, etc.
The school is also very nice and the location is perfect because it is very central.

The teaching style of this school is based on immersion, and I felt my comprehension really improved over the course of the week there. The teachers are great, with creative conversation ideas and clear grammar lessons. However, I would have liked to do more speaking. We watched Flemish TV episodes during the classes, but didn’t discuss the program afterwards, which would have been helpful to understand and articulate our opinions on the show. We also did a lot of work on the computer program, which I felt could have been done at home, rather than using valuable class time with the teacher.

It was very really nice because we were a very small group, and the teaching isn’t academic at all

You do different exercises and “games” where you can express yourself and speak Dutch, and you have less theory and written exercises (like in school)

The school is in the center of the city so it was very easy to come and to organize the activities outside of the school.
You have a lot to do in Antwerp between culture, sports, visits, relaxing so

The class was very compact and everyone had enough time to practice and talk about yourself with words which we leaned.
The teachers were very kind and friendly and I really enjoyed learning with them.
Almost everyday there was an activity after class and I joined almost every time. It was very fun and good opportunity to practice Dutch.
The school was very near from the house where I stayed and it was practically.
Unfortunately because of the Corona virus we had to have online lessons in the second week and many things were limited.
I also had to go back to Japan earlier but I could take a online lesson in Japan and they suggested that I have an extra lesson because I missed one lesson due to my flight.
But I’m so satisfied with the lesson and i could improve my Dutch.

Loved the teachers, learning environment and my fellow students.