About my work

Michel Couzijn (1964) is a researcher, teacher, and teacher educator at the Graduate School of Teaching and Learning, University of Amsterdam. He focuses on first-language education in secondary schools.

Michel received his master's degree in Dutch language and literature in 1989 (UvA, "Argumentatie in de peiling" (Argumentation assessed) and a teacher's license one year later. Between 1989 and 2004 he has worked as a Dutch teacher in the upper streams of five secondary schools in Amsterdam. In 1995, Michel received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam with the thesis "Observation of Reading and Writing: Effects on Learning and Transfer". In this thesis he empirically investigated the value of learning-by-observation in the language curriculum, in which learning-by-doing is traditionally prevalent.

From 1996, Michel has worked as a teacher educator at the Graduate School of Teaching and Learning,contributing to the induction of master students into the teaching profession. His main interest here is the tension between diversity , which is necessary for each individual teacher to discover and use his own strengths, weaknesses and preferences, and unity , which is necessary to arrive at professional standards for effective teaching. Another interest is the obstinate implementation of scientific findings in education into classroom practice.

Michel has worked as an in-service teacher educator and consultant between 1997 and 2001, when schools and teachers asked for help in implementing ways of active and independent learning in the language curriculum, in choosing text books, or in implementing ICT in the classroom.

Between 1998 and 2003, Michel founded and was an active member of the team of authors responsible for 'Taaldomein' (EPN), a text book for secondary education in which the first-language curriculum is organized around the concept of speech acts, and in which transfer between language modes (reading, writing, speaking, listening) is promoted. For a newcomer on the textbook market, Taaldomein did - and does - remarkably well. It is the first time that a scientific concept (speech act) has been used to determine the organization of text book contents.

In the field of scientific research, between 1997 and 2003 Michel has contributed to the following topics:

• writing in a foreign language: how to maintain your first-language writing skill;
• observational learning: what can students learn from observing peers performing certain language tasks while thinking-aloud?
• small-group discussions about literature: do discussions through e-mail enhance the quality of the discussion and of learning about literature?
• writing hypertext: does this help a student's skill in organizing text?
• asking questions when reading literature: can students learn from asking questions rather thananswering questions about literature?

From November 2007, Michel conducts an NWO-funded research project about inquiry learning and writing in the higher grades of the first-language curriculum. If you want to know more about this project, click the corresponding link below.

You can also find my publication list below.