Over de Ontwikkeling, Vernieuwing en Verduidelijking van Doelstellingen Voor het Vreemde-Taalonderwijs

This article aims at presenting a synopsis of what has been going on in the field of developing and updating the aims of foreign-language instruction in the Netherlands since the early 1960s. In six paragraphs it describes the framework of educational planning at different levels and the problems the planners find themselves up against. It also deals with the question as to what are the preferable terms in which language-teaching aims are to be described (e.g. in terms of skills or in terms of language use) and with the various ways in which different organizations, curriculum planners and in-dividual schools have attempted to implement their (often implicit) views about how foreign-language teaching is to be updated. The article concludes with a number of recommendations for curriculum planners.