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Growing together through the English Language
Growing together through the English Language
Start date: Dec 18, 2014,
End date: Dec 17, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The two-year project our center would like to develop is an ambitious one, revolving around the necessity to update and adapt our educational resources to the new requirements of our today society.
First of all, we intend to address the current needs of our students. The previous introduction of ICT in our educational system and the prevailing demand of having a good level of English, requires of us rethinking the teaching methods we currently use. Incorporating both ICT and English as essential elements into learning and having the students master and handle them with ease, will offer more options to successfully enter the workforce, better understand the world, interact and naturally immerse themselves in the real life upon graduation/finishing their studies.
Secondly, the change in the educational needs of our students brings about improving our teaching skills, which firstly and most importantly translates into adjusting our continuous professional development program. We have to adapt our working methods to the new demands of contemporary world. We have to get proficient in the new procedures that revolve around a more global education. We have to keep ourselves in close contact with our counterparts from other countries.
All these significant changes in teaching – learning styles must be oriented/directed towards the design of a new educational model that will meet the needs of each and every one of our students, both at an individual and group level, with the final aim of enhancing their skills and enriching their knowledge, preparing them to successfully face the significantly exigent demands they are nowadays deemed to confront with.
Therefore, as their teachers, not only do we have to improve our working methodology, but also our English language proficiency.
Teaching part of our educational curriculum in English is a new challenge for all our staff. We need to refresh our knowledge and strive to achieve an optimal level of language proficiency in order to better serve our students’ needs. Moreover, we need to try and create opportunities for language interaction outside the classroom where we can prompt them to express ideas, share emotions and communicate in English fluently.
We understand that this whole project of addressing current educational needs has to be engendered with a global perspective in mind, thus combining the learning and required command of ICT with its application in other areas, which will help create cultural and working links with the outside world. Opening these windows involves providing our educational system with an international dimension, indispensable in today society.
We also believe that the CLIL methodology can be a very useful tool for carrying out our plan, given all the aspects considered. This methodology involves different teaching styles for different situations, while distinguishing a linguistic and cultural dimension that perfectly fits the idea Alfinach School/College intends to convey.
We would like to involve 18 teachers who feel the need and have the motivation to keep improving every day. We focused on their self-interest shown on learning foreign languages, particularly in English, and the use and development of ICT in their classrooms. Four of them will take part in two different courses during the two years, as well as enhance their English we would like them to be formed in CLIL and ICT courses methodology for subsequent implementation in their areas.
Some of them are English teachers and some others are in the process of obtaining the B1 level of English while others are preparing for even higher levels like B2, C1 or C2. We are sure participating in this project will further drive their desire to continue learning and improving their linguistic and technological skills.
The activities planned during the project include preparation sessions and courses for the participants, carried out by the organizing center (English courses based on CLIL methodology, informational sessions on cultural aspects of the country to be visited and reviews of our current methodology).They also include courses that will be held at the premises of our course providers in Bournemouth (England) and Malta. These courses are: "EFL Methodology in practice Module 1", “CLIL Methodology in practice" and "EFL Methodology for English Teachers", "Intensive General English" and "Technology Enhanced Learning". We understand that these courses are in line with what we were looking for and they will meet the project requirements as described above.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the organizing center (Alfinach College/School) is responsible for extracting and analyzing the results obtained by using subsequent assessment tools designed for this purpose. This will help improving what was learned during the period, support the teachers’ further development as new educational projects arise and ensure that future plans are carried out with the highest possible efficiency.