Creative lesson packages for NT2 teachers

What OPENDOEK offers for NT2 teachers

This page brings together the materials OPENDOEK developed to support NT2 teachers in language acquisition through theatre techniques and storytelling. It is intended for teachers in Flanders, Brussels and the Netherlands who are looking for creative and playful ways to activate learners and help them practise Dutch. The lesson packages on this page offer concrete working methods, exercises and techniques that can be used immediately in the classroom. All documents are available in Dutch.

OPENDOEK developed two lesson packages, Fata Urbana and Dubbele Bodems, which give NT2 teachers practical tools to work with theatre and storytelling techniques. Both materials stimulate language enjoyment, expression, and listening and storytelling skills, and help learners practise Dutch in a playful and engaging way. The lesson packages are freely available and ready to use in the classroom.

All documents are provided in Dutch.

Fata Urbana

For Fata Urbana, Veerle Ernalsteen developed a lesson package with additional materials for NT2 learners with both basic and higher language proficiency, based on trial lessons at the five Centres for Adult Education and the Centre for Basic Education in Brussels. This resulted in three webinars in May 2020.

1. De Tongen Los (for NT2 learners with basic language proficiency)
   Interactive exercises and icebreakers that spark the urge to speak, bring stories to the surface, and encourage learners to tell and retell them. Building on the Fata Urbana approach, with a focus on playful ways of learning together, listening and engaging in discussion.
   
2. Op Verhaal Komen (for NT2 learners with higher language proficiency)
   Building on the Fata Urbana approach, learners search for their own stories and/or adapt existing stories through discussion before sharing them with one another. Four storytelling elements run throughout the process: structure, imagination, emotion and expression. Interactive and playful, with listening and storytelling enjoyment at the centre.
   
3. De Kracht van de Verbeelding (for NT2 learners with both basic and higher language proficiency)
   A varied set of exercises designed to stimulate imagination. It includes both short activities and more complex ones for learners with higher language proficiency, alongside exercises suitable for those with a basic knowledge of Dutch. Explore different possibilities and choose what best fits your own groups.

The aim was to introduce non‑Dutch‑speaking learners in Brussels to the art of storytelling during a preparatory trajectory. During the 2019 Landjuweelfestival, several learners followed additional storytelling workshops and eventually presented their stories on the festival stage. This lesson package, developed in collaboration with Huis van het Nederlands, uses storytelling techniques to encourage learners to listen to stories, enjoy them and tell their own. It offers working methods and tips to help bring stories to the surface, develop them further and present them with confidence and flair.

Dubbele Bodems

For Dubbele Bodems, storyteller Veerle Ernalsteen and audio maker Ilse Cox developed a lesson package for NT2 learners with both basic and higher language proficiency, based on trial lessons at LBC Adult Education, LIGO Waas en Dender, and an OKAN class at Heilige Familie in Sint‑Niklaas. This also resulted in two webinars in January 2022.

1. Is dat echt gebeurd?
   Through interactive exercises and icebreakers, we aim to spark the desire and need to tell stories. Personal stories about anything or anyone: a dead canary, where my name comes from, losing a mother, being locked in an office, a hundred pigeons above Kabul ... Learners playfully and interactively arrive at their own stories, listen to each other’s stories, pass them on and/or adapt them through discussion, giving them a new twist together. The focus is on emotion, expression and the structure of a story.
   
2. De podcast van mijn leven!
   

   Listening to podcasts together, but also creating them yourselves. The stories that emerge from Is that really true? form the basis for a personal audio story. How do I tell my story in the best way? How do I create a basic script? Which sounds strengthen the story, and how do I add them? On top of that, we offer plenty of tips and tricks to handle the technical side in a simple way, without expensive equipment or complicated software. With a minimum of materials, you and your learners can create and edit audio recordings, keeping the focus on language and storytelling. Learners who enjoy the technical side can, of course, explore additional options and tips.

The aim of this lesson package and the two webinars is to offer you and other NT2 teachers in Flanders, Brussels and the Netherlands practical tools to create real podcasts in the classroom using your learners’ personal stories. The lesson package also explains how the project unfolded in the three participating classes: the how and what, the goals, what worked well and what worked less well. Much more than in previous Storytelling for NT2 trajectories, we felt the need to provide a well‑filled toolkit of exercises that can be used at different moments, adapted to the content of the stories that emerge, the group dynamics, the level of the learners and the intensity with which you want or are able to work with this material. In other words, the three trajectories that form the basis of this lesson package each developed in very different ways. We therefore invite you to assemble your own selection based on this material: cut and paste, adapt where needed, add your own exercises and shape it to your classroom practice. This lesson package is intended as an inspiring starting point for the wide world of theatre, storytelling and podcasts.