Are Metalinguistic EFL Teaching Approaches Suitable for Dutch Pre-Vocational Pupils?

Abstract

Due to upcoming changes in the Dutch curriculum, metalinguistic training will become more relevant to EFL education in the Netherlands. In the present study, three crosslinguistic lessons were designed for two classes of lower-level educational tracks (English-immersion and non-immersion). These materials were implemented in a three-week intervention, after which pupils were asked about their experience. In addition, the intervention materials were presented to experts: EFL teachers and a professional working for an educational publishing company. Though the experts were mostly positive, the pupils found the classes mostly redundant and non-engaging. Potentially, this negative feedback may be due to surface level features, such as length of direct instruction, rather than the metalinguistic nature of the intervention. These findings resulted in a list of good practices and suggestions based on the professional opinions of the interviewees, observations during the intervention lessons, and the experiences and feedback of the participating pupils.