One world, one people

 

Atlaas:

Approaches to language acquisition for adult students

funded opportunity for training in Poland

Dear applicant,

Welcome Home International is participating in an Erasmus+ project, Atlaas; approaches to language acquisition for adult students, which involves foreign language acquisition by adult learners (Please see the project outline below). ProEduca z.s.in Czech Republic is coordinating this project. As WHI requires volunteer tutors to teach refugees host European country languages within the Café Lingua framework, this project is relevant to us. We ask you to become involved in a Learning, Teaching, Training Activity in Poland, to exchange best practices with organisations from ten other European countries (Please read the description of details below). WHI is responsible for bringing five participants, including both the director, Barbara Winn-Hagelstam, and Café Lingua project coordinator, Amjad Abdallah. To select the remaining three participants, we require you to fill out the application at the end of the page. From this form attendees will be chosen by their willingness to participate in Welcome Home International events, the availability of them to join in WHI positions following the training activity, and the relevance of the project to their current situation. Once selected the participants will be responsible for attending the training activity hosted by the College of Business and Health Sciences (WYZSZA SZKOLA BIZNESU I NAUK O ZDROWIU) in Łódź , Poland from Monday, April 20 to Friday April 24 (Travel day 20th, Training from 21-23, travel day 24th). Accommodation for the period 20-24 by Airbnb, five-bedroom apartment at Piotrkowska 278, 90-001 Łódź, Poland, is only a 32 minute walk away. The project will purchase flights, and it will reimburse internal transport meals, and transfers between airport and home/accommodation address according to receipts. We wish you luck in the selection process and look forward to your participation in this activity. Kindest Regards, Barbara Winn-Hagelstam.

 

PROJECT OUTLINE

Communication in foreign languages is one of the eight key competencies defined by the European Reference Framework. It consists of the ability to understand spoken messages, to initiate, sustain and conclude conversations and to read, understand and produce texts appropriate to one’s individual needs. A positive attitude involves the appreciation of cultural diversity and interest in and curiosity about languages and intercultural communication. Language teaching and learning is essential to ensuring that European citizens can move, work and learn freely throughout Europe. This will help boost jobs and growth, and contribute to a mutual understanding of other countries and cultures. It is also essential to ensure that language deficiency is not a barrier to participation in society. The role of the European Commission is to coordinate efforts with national governments to pursue the objectives of the strategic framework for languages with support from the activities of Erasmus+.

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Learning, Teaching, Training Activity details

The main objective of the LTTA is to provide a synergistic environment for presenting our expertise and capacities using learning by doing approach. The participants will take part in several different kinds of activities that will complement each other, providing optimal conditions for sharing and/or learning the particular methodological approach. Each partner will lead a workshop demonstrating the approaches they use and want to share. As the partnership is rather big and there will be 30 participants to the LTTA, a very precise time- management will be necessary. The LTTA will last 3 working days. The program will be short, but focused on the topic and the time-scale of the event will be prepared in advance. The event will consist of the following activities:

1 - presentation of the main problem areas in language teaching and training, hot topics (results of A1 and A2) - each partner will present 1-2 pre-selected methods including the problem areas to focus at;

2 - practical workshop: presentation/rehearsal of the selected teaching approaches - group work;

3 - evaluation (SWOT analysis) of the combinations of A1 and A2 - each partner will evaluate the method from their point of view of their expertise, considering their own target groups, condition etc.;

4 - swap: selection of approaches to be tried under different conditions (in different partner organisation) - the way the approaches will be selected will be decided upon - either random "pull form the hat", or redistribution following certain rule. Day 1 of the LTTA will be dedicated to activity

1. Day 2 and 3 will combine activities 2, 3 and 4 - the number of workshops will be divided between the two days, after each practical workshop the approach will be evaluated by each partner. During the two days, all partners will think of adopting 1-2 approaches from another partners, that will be tried in their organisation under their own conditions. In the end of day 3 each partner will reveal which new approach(es) they will attempt to adopt. In case we will decide to redistribute the approaches by the "pull from the hat", this will happen in the very end of the Day 3. The aim of these workshops will be: - to learn about new possibilities in the language teaching to adults; - to train the selected methods in the group; - to learn by doing; - to provide a feedback on the workshops, the content as well as the process; - to provide the recommendations usable by the final result - the kit. Profile of the participants: The participants to the LTT activity will be the language teachers/trainers for adult learners from the partner organisations.

Logistics: All participants will arrive 1 day before and leave 1 day after the professional program of the LTT activity.