Good evening,
Next year i want to study to become a history teacher. And i talked to a former teacher of me who told me, that it can be a problem for some teachers if you get a translated piece of text. And i was wondering how big of a deal is that? Im from Europe And i can only speak English and Dutch, will this be a issue during my study? And what besides form learning more languages can i do to make it less of a problem?
Thanks in advance. (Sorry my English isnt perfect. Feel free to call me out on mistakes.)
In general you won't suffer an impediment from not having mastered secondary languages when studying to become a history teacher in the Netherlands. I'm assuming you will be enrolling into HBO Tweedegraads Leraar Geschiedenis? If you are, (nearly) all your textbooks will be in Dutch. There might be some case studies in English, but even these are likely to come with Dutch interpretations or with aid from the presiding (Dutch) teacher. In general, the study will be roughly 50/50 in terms of emphasis on actual history (which is more a WO thing in Dutch terms) and emphasis on the didactic/pedagogic side of being a teacher in front of a class with Dutch students and as such will be relatively broad and not as deep as WO historic studies in terms of actual historic material. Also, in practice, once you have graduated and start working as a history teacher, nearly all your material and the methodology used therein will be designed and streamlined according to what the Ministry of Education and the boards deign to be most effective in instructing history classes on large scales, used by a great number of institutions, and will leave you with little room to replace anything with your own material; you can always add, of course, but in general there is little use of period source material until you decide to continue and obtain a masters so you can start instructing on HBO/WO.
Concerning the interpretation of original sources in general and the importance of knowing more languages to do so, it's widely dependent on what period and location the source is about and from, and how niche the subject matter is. Is there, besides your aim to become a history teacher, a certain subject you are personally interested in perhaps? There is a world of difference between researching 14th-15th century horse-and-wagon privileges within the county of Holland (surprisingly interesting by the way!) on one hand and researching Operation Overlord on the other; for one a rudimentary understanding of Middle Dutch and Latin goes a long way while for the other English will you get most of the way there.