All you need to know about the Speaking          (spreekvaardigheid) part of the inburgeringsexamen.

1. 1. What does speaking at B1 level mean?

Speaking at B1 level in Dutch means you can have a day to day conversation or a simple discussion where you can voice your opinion. Basic vocabulary doesn't hold you back and you can form short sentences without grammar errors. You understand more complicated sentences, but you don't need to form them yet.

1. 2. Practical information about the exam.

Unlike you would expect, you will not speak to a person, you will do this exam with the computer. You will see some video clips and you will answer questions about those videoclips. The computer will record you and an examinator will look at your recording and assess your level. The exam takes 35 minutes.

3. What do you need to know to pass this exam?

To pass this exam it is not only important to be able to speak Dutch , you will also need to understand the questions. You will get questions like:

What do you like to eat? How often do you eat it? Or It rains a lot in the Netherlands, what do you think about that? Why do you think that? ...

4. How can you prepare for this exam?

- Before you can start talking in Dutch, you need to be aware of the Dutch pronunciation, the basic grammar rules and you need to have a fair amount of active vocabulary present. In our beginners and our intermediate course, we first start with small conversational exercises and surely but slowly build up your confidence to speak further to get you to have more opinionated and more formal conversations. Your trainer will guide you through all the necessary pronunciation exercises and will provide you with immediate feedback in order to ameliorate your confidence and speak fluently. Feel free to contact us for more.

- Try to have at least one conversation a day with a native Dutch person. Our in-house developed course has been set up in a way that allows you to build up a vocabulary set around a certain ( day to day) theme so you can test the waters about that theme with a native. For example : In our beginners course we have a chapter that handles all about family and personal relations. After this chapter we send our students to a native ( colleague, friend, ...) and they go ask about their familie, friends, ... . Not only does this help to get your conversational skills going, it also helps a lot to let that newly learned vocabulary stick as you are using it.

 - For more helpful tips to speak Dutch fluently feel free to have look at          our blog post where we give you detailed and step by step guidelines       to speak Dutch fluently. 

- Practice exams, would you like to practice for the speaking exam? Follow this link to see how ready you are for the spreekvaardigheids part of the inburgeringsexamen.