Sjoerd van der Veer

Hello, I’m Sjoerd. I’m a Dutch student living in Leiden, the Netherlands. I am 27 years old and have an older brother (29), he is currently working in Ghana. My family is very internationally orientated, my dad is a professor in Asian religion and culture and my brother works abroad often for the Dutch foreign ministry.

I am also internationally orientated. I have studied in the US for a semester and before starting my study in Leiden I have been teaching English in China for a year and a half. This is also where I decided I wanted to become a teacher. Because of my passion for history I decided to become a history teacher and I chose to do the World Teacher Program, because it gives me the opportunity to work abroad.

So far the course has been really great. I enjoy teaching history at my new school (Rijnlands Lyceum Sassenheim) and enjoy working in bilingual education. The CLIL aspect of teaching can sometimes be challenging, because the level of English in the class is not always the same. Therefore it is important to make sure the lower level students get the right amount of guidance.

I am really looking forward to the telecollaborative exchange and working with the students from Valladolid. Hopefully I can learn a lot from the way CLIL is used by the Spanish teachers.