Sunday 23 March 2014

"My personal experience in Plymouth" by Emilie

One of our students from Belgium, decided to write a few paragraphs about her experience in Plymouth. We were lucky enough to work with Emilie as she undertook her work placement with Almond Vocational Link in February 2014. It was a pleasure to work with this bright young lady and we wish her all the best in her future professional career.

Here is what Emilie had to say:

Emilie (far right) taking part in Language Cafe activities

My personal experience in Plymouth

 
My name is Emilie and I’m in my final year of studying to become a management assistant. I am from Libramont, a little town in the south of Belgium. To complete my studies, I decided to undertake training abroad. Other students from my school came to UK before and said they had good time. I decided to come to Plymouth with two friends, Fabienne and Virginie. We arrived here on 1st February 2014.

The beginning was rather difficult. I didn't know anything about this city, I didn't know if I would like it, if I would have fun, if my work placement would be nice... I just wanted to come back home, but after three or four days, everything was fine.
I came here for a work placement (as a student) at Almond Vocational Link Ltd. I found it a nice place to work. The people are very patient, smiling. During my work placement, I had the opportunity to improve my own skills (translation, page layout, letter writing) but also the opportunity to develop new skills I hadn't before like marketing, database, research.

Little by little, I discovered the lovely city of Plymouth. This city is a paradise for those who love shopping. The most amazing, for me, was the cosmetics. Anything you could dream, you have it. In the centre, you can find a lot of wonderful and amazing shops that don’t exist in Belgium. My favourite are Boots and Superdrug. Plymouth is also perfect for those who love going out late. In the city, you can find a lot of casino’s, night clubs, cafe’s, bars.

Everything here is very easy to find. Wherever you live around Plymouth, you have buses to go to the city centre every few minutes, even on Sundays! You just have to go to Royal Parade and then, everything is here: shops, nightclubs, restaurants... Whatever you want, you have it around Royal Parade!

My country is known to be the Chocolate’s Country but England is a chocolate’s country too! There are so many kinds of chocolate products that one month is not enough to taste all of them. Nevertheless, there are also a lot of other food products that you can’t find in Belgium and it’s just fun to taste them.

I really enjoyed my stay here. One month is a bit too short if you want to enjoy everything that Plymouth can offer you, but it was really nice to come here. People are very kind and helpful. They won’t blame you if you don’t understand what they say or if you don’t speak English very well. They have great qualities that a lot of people from big cities don’t have. All of this, is what makes Plymouth  amazing!


Emilie receiving her certificate from Janet

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Certificates in February

Certificates in February

This February, we bed farewell to some of our European students. All of them received Almond Vocational Link Certificates for their participation and completion of the programme.Here are the photographs from the Certificate Ceremonies of groups from Germany, Romania and Belgium. 















www.almondvoclink.co.uk









Wednesday 5 March 2014

MMLT Teacher Seminar

Saturday 1st March / Sunday 2nd March

 
About MMLT

 
This project aims to provide a framework through the Montessori Method (MM) and hopes to achieve this purpose by using the  MM’s theories and practises in language teaching environments, both remotely (through e-learning and ICT based training) and supported by face-to-face workshops.

 

It is believed that this will achieve the four strategic objectives set out by the Education and Training 2020 (ET2020) framework (Europa Summaries of EU legislation, 2009) as follows:
  • Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality
  • Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training
  • Promoting equality, social cohesion and active citizenship, and
  • Enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels education and training

Montessori Principles


Teacher Training
 
After series of introductory and organisational meetings we have now reached the Teacher Training Stage of the process. The first face-to-face meeting was held on Saturday 1st March and led by our teacher Mrs Karen Corne. 
 
 
We  invited a group of 10 qualified language teachers (divided into 2 groups of 5) to help us in the process of piloting the MMLT project and participating in the research phase. The invaluable feedback we received will be crucial to creating a successful manual. During the Seminar, our teachers engaged in series of lively debates, talked about advantages and disadvantages of being an adult learner. We recognised that stress is the most common factor preventing  adults from learning a foreign language. Karen talked about how Montessori  Methods can help with minimising stress and maximising the potential of an individual.  
 


          

 Please go to our website to find more information about MMLT 

Partners in this Project: