Hello,

I cannot say I have gleaned much culturally from staying here these few months. My life was composed of a microcosm including a supermarket, some pupils, a teacher’s lounge and my turquoise room (not necessarily in that order). I trudged up and down the town a good few times in my earlier, foiled attempts to find accommodation, but to believe that the ‘culture’ of the town or indeed the country was imparted to me by my glimpses of foreign architecture and road signs would be quite optimistic to put it mildly.

Given the fact that I regularly met with people from this part of the world when I was playing for a competition band in Antwerp, I was not shocked by the accent or the attitudes of the people I have interacted with. No culture clash occurred as far as I could tell.

There are a few things in these environments that I could conceivably identify as different, however. The atmosphere in the school is quite different to what I have known in the past. It is safe to say that the pupils appear to feel much greater freedom in the classroom than most pupils in Belgium could ever dream of having. For instance, they can make use of their phones and their music devices in certain circumstances. They also tend to be freer in terms of what they say. These and a myriad of other small observations give an overall picture which contrasts sharply with what I might expect as a product of the Belgian system. My opinions on the matter were comforted by the French assistant in the school who nearly fell over backwards at how carefree the students behaved and how blithe they seemed to feel. As far as the supermarket in concerned, besides the fact that they ask you if you want stamps at every check-out, I cannot say I ever felt out of my depth.

By electing to ask for an internship in the Netherlands, I had ultimately hoped to interact with the ‘natives’ enough to somewhat improve my level of fluency in Dutch. This proved to be ill-fated for a number of reasons. First of all, the members of the English faculty make a point of speaking English to one another. Secondly, all my interactions with the pupils were in L2. My somewhat confusing background added to the general mystique about my level in Dutch and their level in English was sufficient for all purposes. Lastly, my interactions with my housemates have been few and far between since, as the saying goes, I have mostly had other fish to fry.

I have obviously had conversations with other teachers in the lounge and acquainted myself with the other residents of the house whilst cooking, for example, but all in all I have spoken very little Dutch. If anything, it has allowed me to further my level of English since some of the texts the pupils were working on contained words I did not know. However, I cannot say that I have encountered any more new words than usual.

I will see you all soon. Until then, all the best.

A