{"id":183435,"date":"2025-11-12T12:39:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=183435"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:58","slug":"sam-van-leeuwen-leert-inburgerende-nieuwkomers-nederlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2025\/11\/12\/sam-van-leeuwen-leert-inburgerende-nieuwkomers-nederlands\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam van Leeuwen teaches Dutch to newcomers integrating into society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIntegration means learning the language\u201d, says Sam van Leeuwen. As a Dutch language teacher for newcomers, he limits his lessons strictly to language. Complex subjects such as the colonial past, war or genocide, he reflects on through the books on his bedside table.<\/p>

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\u201cWhat do you know about civic integration?\u201d, asks Sam van Leeuwen at the start of the conversation. It could be a question from a quiz show like De Slimste Mens<\/em>, but he means it rhetorically. \u201cPeople think that inburgeren<\/em> (civic integration, ed.) is about learning Dutch culture, or learning that you shouldn\u2019t hit your wife, but that\u2019s only one percent of it. Inburgeren means learning the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that also happens at the university. As a teacher of Dutch as a second language (NT2), Van Leeuwen teaches Dutch to young newcomers who aim to study at a Dutch university or university of applied sciences. He does this at the Language & Training Centre on campus. Elsewhere in the city, he teaches Dutch to people who no longer have such ambitions but still need to complete their inburgeren.<\/p>\n\t

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Sam van Leeuwen studied Criminology and Public Administration at EUR. He completed an internship at the Dutch embassy in Sri Lanka and worked as an English teacher in Colombia. In Rotterdam, he has taught Dutch at several schools. Since 2025, he has been working at the Language & Training Centre at EUR, where he teaches students following the education route \u2013 newcomers who wish to study in higher education after completing their inburgeren.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Living in another language<\/h2>

\u201cEverything starts with language\u201d, says Van Leeuwen about living in another country. But learning a new language in a country like the Netherlands is not easy. His students often complain that people on the street quickly switch to English: \u201cAnd for many, Arabic is their mother tongue, which makes it tempting to communicate with each other in the language they feel most comfortable with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Leeuwen recognises this from his own time living in Colombia. After working for a consultancy firm, he left \u2018out of a kind of escapism\u2019 for South America to teach English. He had promised himself he would immerse fully in the Spanish-speaking culture, but when he met a fellow Rotterdam native at the gym, they immediately became best friends. \u201cYou can get by quickly in a supermarket in another language, but maintaining a friendship in a different language is complicated. Humour and complex conversations require such a high level of language.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Netherlands as coloniser<\/h2>

As an NT2 teacher, he analyses Dutch as if it were a foreign language. Sentence structures that once felt self-evident, he had to relearn during his teacher training, so he could then teach them to newcomers. However complex that may be, at least it\u2019s unambiguous. Dutch cultural norms are less so, Van Leeuwen realised while listening to the podcast series Revolusi<\/em> by author David Van Reybrouck during a holiday in Indonesia. \u201cFifty percent of Dutch people are still proud of the colonial past\u201d, he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After listening to the more than eight-hour podcast Revolusi<\/em> about the history of Indonesia, Van Leeuwen also read the book of the same name by David Van Reybrouck. The author interviewed hundreds of still-living witnesses of the struggle for independence. It was precisely those personal stories that kept Van Leeuwen \u2013 not an avid reader, as he admits \u2013 reading. \u201cThe death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic\u201d, explains Van Leeuwen, describing his interest in the book. He also sees a link with his own work. \u201cAll those stories are about war, migration, globalisation and fleeing. All themes that my students, unasked, are also confronted with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The classroom revolves around language<\/h2>

Van Leeuwen likes to read about genocide and war \u2013 even before going to sleep. \u201cI dream about Putin. It\u2019s probably something for a psychiatrist to analyse, but it occupies my mind.\u201d When he drives to the golf course with a friend, they first discuss the latest situation in Gaza and Ukraine. But he doesn\u2019t discuss geopolitical issues with his students. \u201cSometimes we watch the news in simple language. I always skip a report about Gaza then. It\u2019s about the language\u201d, says Van Leeuwen. \u201cAbout speaking and listening. I spend much of the time trying to reduce speaking anxiety. That means correcting as little as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever else happens above people\u2019s heads doesn\u2019t matter in the classroom. War, genocide and the colonial past of the Netherlands are all his personal interests. As is Boer zoekt vrouw<\/em>. He recently read Boer zocht vrouw<\/em>, the untold stories of the television programme that Van Leeuwen used to watch every Sunday evening with his friends. For a long time, the programme shaped his view of the Dutch farmer, but nowadays he also sees farmers as people driving their tractors onto the Binnenhof. It\u2019s just as well that in his lessons he can stick to the Dutch language. He\u2019d rather not burn his fingers on Dutch culture.<\/p>\n

Reading habits<\/h2>\t
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Reading habits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number of books per year: Five to ten<\/p>\n

Last book read: Boer zocht vrouw<\/em> by Chris van Mersbergen<\/p>\n

Main motivation: Relaxation \u2013 despite the choice of topics<\/p>\n

Favourite genre: Non-fiction about genocide and war<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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