The Dutch Students Association is offering people a campus tour in Dutch. Board member Maddy Kester filmed and edited the YouTube clip, which is the latest in a series of Dutch language media clips produced under the guidance of instructor Esmée van der Hoeven. Since 2018, van der Hoeven has led students in producing Dutch content, including videos like "What is your favorite word in Dutch?" and "Why do you learn Dutch—wrong answers only" that have proved popular amongst viewers in the Netherlands and Belgium along with in the US. Van der Hoeven, who also teaches at Stanford, finds that video content and challenges are a fun medium for students to express themselves in the language and connect to Dutch speaking audiences around the world.
In addition to taking viewers through beloved spots on campus, the latest video highlights the experience of Zak, who enrolled remotely in Dutch 1 from Los Angeles. The Dutch program has been offering distance learning courses since Covid, allowing students from across the UCs to join their colleagues at UC Berkeley in pursuing Dutch language studies. Utilizing learning technology provided through the Berkeley Language Center classrooms, van der Hoeven has seven students from other UCs joining her Berkeley classroom this fall.
