Evaluations
During the final lecture of each course the students fill out a self-made evaluation form. Completely new for me was teaching blogging within a School. The fourth-year students work in a crossmedia lab, using mostly radio and television, and had to now integrate Campusblog.nl in their schedule.

Some comments:

“Blogging is not scary at all, I can actually do it myself”
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“It was very cool to hear about Web 3.o, as a person who is interested in Internet-related news I didn’t realise what impact it has”
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“Blogging is not just for people who like to write about themselves, you can use it as a journalist. I think I’ll start setting up a blog with my work soon”

Freelance theory evaluations
Another course that was new to me is Freelance Theory. As a freelance journalist myself I had to now tell about 60 eager-to-learn third and fourth year journalism students about the mistakes I’ve made, how I survive financially and how I cope with doing my own administration. Luckily I had tons of guests and a great book to help me out. See my previous blog post for more.

Some comments:

“I now know how to get started. I really need to work on my network”
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“I really loved listening to all the anecdotes and practical hints and tips, this was very useful”
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“Before these lectures I didn’t know if I wanted to take the risk and start my own text writing company. I was worried about the financial side and the administration. Thank you for clearing up a lot of the questions I had”
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“It’s really not that difficult as I thought. You just need to DO it and not just THINK about doing it. I will become a freelancer, I’m 100% sure now”
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Buzz buzz
I did learn that all students apparently need a break between the hours during every lecture. It was normal for me to keep on going for two hours in a row but today’s climate is more relaxed then it ever was, which means coffee at the start of the class, during the break AND afterwards. Buzz buzz

Tight deadlines
Other students first complain about the tight deadlines I set, only realising later on that it helps them get through the course. Others find the assignments difficult, but challenging a student can be very rewarding. Many students now realise that being a freelance journalist doesn’t just mean having as many holidays as you want.

I hope to continue lecturing at the end of this year and I will obviously take all the comments from the evaluations with me.

How do you set up, create and sustain a professional network? How do you pitch a story, find new clients and keep in touch?

Other topics involve the Chamber of Commerce, paying tax and insurances. The students also make a number of assignments, they have to write a freelancer profile, make a business plan and visit a media cafe to network with fellow journalist.

Its necessary to teach students about being a freelancer in these financially messy times and to be able to survive on their own.

Guest speakers

We also have a number of guest speakers and so far we welcomed: Tom van der Leij, Bas Maliepaard, Sander Zurhake, Herman Spinhof and Ilvy Njiokiktjien who all shared their experiences in the freelance world.

Take a look at the slideshows of the first 2 lectures here and here. Please note that there are in Dutch.

Awesome book

Also, without the ‘Handboek Freelancen 2008-2009‘ from Tijs van den Boomen and Wilma van Hoeflaken it would have been impossible to explain tax and administrative issues. The book is now required for each Freelance student in my class.

They translate Dutch words directly into English or make Dutch words sound English. It becomes even funnier when Dutch phrases and expressions are translated literally when their meaning is meant figuratively. A perfect book for another English lecture!

Let me give you two examples from the book of the type of ‘Dutchified English’ that is called Denglish by Rijkens.

The Dutch say: “Hij heeft er geen kaas van gegeten”, if you translate this expression directly it will say: “He did not eat any cheese of it” … What the Dutch person is trying to say is: “He doesn’t know the first thing about it”

Another example:

The Dutch say: “Je bent op glad ijs”, if you translate this in Denglish it will say “You are on glad ice”… What the Dutch person is trying to say is “You’re skating on thin ice”.

For the English lecture at the School of Journalism tomorrow I’ll compile a list of the funniest Denglish and promote the book a bit, I think many students need it.

It’s a bit of a challenge, lecturing English to first year Dutch Journalism students. Most walk in thinking it will be 2 hours of listening to boring present-tense and past-tense rules, maybe like it used to be in High School. Well, I have set myself a challenge.

During the first class we had to discuss the contents and structure of the course, which is obviously not very exciting, unless you start with some fun news videos from the BBC website. In the next class I’ll be using video from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, why not laugh out loud during class?

Besides videos it’s also fun to challenge each other and speak English in front of your class mates. To try and formulate answers, hear your own mistakes, to try a true English-accent.

We also practice our reading skills with articles from different magazines. I personally like NewAfrican, but they made loads of factual mistakes in an article about immigration in Holland (‘Holland – Blaming everything bad on immigrants’, June ‘08), even confusing the murder of politician Pim Fortuyn with that of movie director Theo van Gogh. Great for Journalism students to read how correspondents make mistakes and to still be able to find and understand the mistakes while its written in English.

It’s the first time I taught English but the two hours passed very quickly. Monday is the second class and I’m preparing another fun two hours, hoping to also get some feedback from the students. Hope they think this challenge is successful.