Columnist and poet Jean Pierre Rawie has been annoyed for years by the Anglicization of universities in the Netherlands. Finally, a cure seems to have been found against this ‘English disease’. To limit the influx of foreign students, courses are again taught in Dutch.
You will probably find this good news!
“Of course. I just find it so strange that all those learned minds took so long to do this.”
What did you think when you read the news about this?
“High time for this change, of course. But it is absurd that they completely messed things up at first and now, when the tide has finally turned, they come up with such an obvious solution.”
You already wrote a piece in 2018 in which you addressed Anglicization.
“When I wrote that piece and it went viral, some people responded quite scornfully. Now they finally see the problem.”
Is this enough? Or should universities do more?
“We have to see that. We’ll have to see first if this will work. I fear that many things will remain. Isn’t it crazy that someone who studies Spanish has lectures in English? And this is already necessary if there is only one foreign student in the class. And, this is what I was told, so I didn’t see it myself, that should also be the case if that student is Flemish.”
Isn’t there something to be said for the use of English in lecture halls? Aren’t the Dutch always so proud of speaking good English?
“Yes, but that is not true at all. I have sometimes presented a few English expressions to people at university. For example the expression a dry bob. That doesn’t mean something like a drunk driver, but leaving church before singing. They didn’t know that. Those are things that are important to know. I have also heard such a lecture or working group in English. That’s awful. You hear phrases like ‘ how do you say and so on. The teachers speak poor English and the English of the students, who come from Germany or China or something like that, is not very good either.”
“It’s like non-native speaker , nice to use that term now, of a certain language very difficult to have a conversation at a high level. Imagine having to listen to someone for 45 minutes who has difficulty expressing themselves in English. All jokes fall away. It’s really crazy that it took them so long to do this.”
Now that you have addressed and resolved this issue. What are you going to war against now?
“Oh well, there’s probably a lot more… We’ll see what the next craziness is.”