Blogs & News

Delivering a scientific presentation can be daunting, especially for PhD candidates stepping onto the international stage. This practical guide shows how to present your research with clarity, confidence, and impact. Discover how to structure your talk, craft a clear message, design strong visuals, and engage your audience through storytelling and interaction. Ready to grow your presentation skills? Explore our Presenting and Pitching with Confidence course at Taalcentrum-VU.

Communicating research to a wider audience can be challenging, especially when your work involves complex concepts and specialist language. This article explores how PhD candidates can make science more accessible without oversimplifying it. From understanding your audience to using storytelling, visuals and clear language, it offers practical ways to explain your research in a way that is engaging, relevant and easy to follow.

Starting a dissertation or research paper can feel overwhelming. This blog outlines six practical steps to help PhD students begin with more focus and confidence. From defining your objective and reading selectively to outlining, drafting and revising, the article shows how a clear process can make academic writing more manageable.

Good preparation is often the key to success. These five tips will help boost your chances of achieving a good score.

Intercultural communication goes wrong most often when everyone thinks they are being clear. Small misunderstandings can quietly turn into delays, rework, conflict, or loss of trust. Practical communication models help you spot the patterns early and respond with skill, not stereotypes.

For most learners, getting started with English is surprisingly easy. But after an easy start, many people discover that English also hides plenty of traps, such as irregular spelling, grammatical exceptions and inconsistencies, which can significantly impact your communication skills.

If you work with international clients or colleagues from different cultural backgrounds, you’ve probably experienced it: someone speaks or answers questions more bluntly or opaquely than what you are used to. Or perhaps they seem hesitant to speak up in a meeting and they avoid giving feedback altogether. Shared language doesn’t automatically lead to shared understanding, even if everyone is fluent in English.

How do you write a creative text? Think of creative writing as shaping words and crafting language that awaken something within the reader. A lively text is more than sentences - it’s an open door into your narrative. Whether you’re writing a web text, newsletter or blog, a little creativity will give your text more colour and persuasiveness. Explore these eight practical tips and learn how to turn your words into vivid narratives.

Want to learn Dutch as an expat? NT2 trainer Andrea de Vries explains how to make real progress – even if you work in an English-speaking environment. Her tip? Don’t do it alone. Learning Dutch together with colleagues boosts both your skills and your team spirit. Discover how tailored training can support expat professionals at work and beyond.

You need to write a text. A blog, an email or perhaps a longer report. How do you make sure your text is incisive and inviting? How do you make it as engaging as possible for your reader? These seven golden rules of writing are a great place to start. Follow them and you can be sure that your text will be watertight and your message crystal clear.

Working as an English language trainer and course developer in the Netherlands, I’ve witnessed firsthand the growing internationalization of our society. This is especially evident in the healthcare sector, where dedicated Dutch providers are increasingly working with patients from all over the world—many of whom don’t yet speak Dutch. The responsibility of explaining medical information and offering compassionate care in English—often a second language for everyone involved—is significant. This growing need has led TC-VU to expand our focus, and I’ve had the privilege of developing and delivering specialized English language training for healthcare professionals.

A growing number of companies and organisations in the Netherlands employ a mix of people from different language backgrounds. While this mix of languages and cultures can enrich people’s working lives, it also comes with risks. This is especially true when it comes to safety at work. A recent press release from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment warns that clear communication in a multilingual workplace requires extra vigilance.