The history of the DLSA and its predecessors goes back some thirty years, when I started teaching a beginner’s course Dutch to PhD’ers of the Biology Department of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. I was asked to do this by their professor, whom I had taught Dutch at the Volksuniversiteit. From the early days on, communication was the main goal of my teaching.
Around 2010 the Biology Department moved to Zernike Campus. Colleagues Ariane van Empel and later Joke Fenenga, both very experienced language teachers, joined me. Together we expanded the language school with an advanced level.
In 2018 the Head of the International School/Maartenscollege in Haren, where I was and am teaching Dutch and Literature, asked me to set up courses Dutch for the parents and teachers of the students of the ISG. I decided to combine the two groups of language students, PhD’ers ánd parents and teachers, into one school. The DLSA was born.
Mieke van den Heuvel-Wink joined us. She started to teach the beginners’ levels at the premises of the ISG, while Joke and I continued teaching the advanced levels in the eye-catching buildings on Zernike Campus.
Then the corona era started. For two years Mieke, Joke and I taught in total four levels online, to mixed groups of parents and teachers of the ISG, PhD students and others interested. Our program by now had developed into a well-balanced curriculum from A1 to B2.
In the fall of 2022, we switched to live teaching again, now on several locations in Groningen. Joke’s course was taken over by Geartsje Schram.
In the summer of 2023 Mieke stopped teaching her courses. They will be taken over, in a slightly changed form, by Lennart Bartsch and Bianca Muntinga.
On level B1 we will start offering two courses, B1-1 and B1-2, taught by Geartsje Schram and Maaike Baert.
On behalf of Bianca, Geartsje, Lennart and Maaike,
Fros van der Maden
