Online Teacher Training

To read more about Montessori Methodology in Language Training Project please visit Almond Vocational Link  or the project website www.mmlt.eu

Language Cafe - Jobs

Last night's topic for the Language Cafe was "jobs". We all talked about what we do at work and what would we like to do in the future. We had a great opportunity to listen to how different the rules and regulations are in schools and pre-schools across Denmark. Our Danish students are currently assisting in schools and pre-schools in Plymouth, so it was very interesting to listen to how the system works in their home country. 

We also had a couple of surprise hidden talents come out and found out, we have an aspiring young actress and a singer in our group! The group also got to know our new arrivals from Czech Republic who talked about the carrier path they'd like to follow after education.  We also played a little game of "Guess who I am"

"Guess who I am" 

Divide the participants into 2 groups. Every team member must come to the front and draw a card with a job title written down. Under the job title, there are 2 "banned" words. This means that when talking about your job, you are not allowed to use the banned words. You have 60 seconds to describe your job whilst others are guessing.  Both teams can guess and win points at the same time. The game ends, when all the participants take their turn. 

To see our previous games, follow the link 

Language Cafe in Plymouth Herald

Hope you all had a great Easter break, we most certainly did :) Just before Easter we had a little visit from local newspaper - Plymouth Herald. We sent an email to one of the reporters, explaining what our Language Cafe is all about and how it can improve the  Plymouth community and the relations between people of different nationalities with the locals. Sian Davis - the reporter, decided this was worthy of a news story and the ball went rolling from there.  Just before Easter we had a Plymouth Herald photographer joining us for the Language Cafe to take some pictures of our students, we had a great laugh :) Below you can find the news story itself, which appeared in Herald on Bank Holiday Monday 21/04/2014

Photo by Plymouth Herald

A LANGUAGE cafe is bringing together foreign speakers to help them integrate into the Plymouth community.The cafe, at City Business Park, Somerset Place, in Stoke runs on Thursdays from 5pm.

The free cafe brings English lessons into a social environment to help adult learners get to grips with the language more effectively – and give them a chance to get to know each other. Foreign students attend the classes, along with people who live and work in Plymouth and want to be able to integrate better into the community. 

Kamila Bielawska, who works for Almond Vocational Link in Plymouth said one of the main aims of the cafe is to help increase the learners’ confidence to practice their English outside the classroom. Kamila said: “The project aims at implementing the Montessori teaching style into an adult environment to help them learn language more effectively.

 “As a part of this project, we started our own language cafe. “The cafe is aimed at foreign language speakers from all backgrounds, who would like to improve their English. 

“During the meetings, we use Montessori teaching methods, meaning that the ‘classes’ are very interactive, fun and free-flowing but with a set goal to achieve each time. 

“The classes are becoming very popular with our European students but also with other foreign nationals who are living and working in Plymouth. “Many of them often mention to us that they feel too afraid to make a mistake and sound silly whilst speaking English. 

“This is often the reason why they stay silent and in fact avoid the opportunities to practice their English language. 

“Some of the participants even mentioned that the Language Cafe is one of not many opportunities they get to improve English, because they are too stressed to use it spontaneously. “

We are trying to boost their confidence, eliminate the stress, and convince that showing the will to communicate is always better than remaining silent.”Games and interactive activities help the learners get to grips with their language skills, according to Kamila. 

“We use a wide variety of resources, organise many fun activities and simple games in teams,” she said. “Because the participants are of mixed ability and of different nationalities, they have to use English in any way they can, to communicate and consult each other during the tasks and games. “The environment is very friendly and relaxed, which helps those with lower abilities to open up. 

“Many of our local participants believe that improving their language skills will help them to integrate better and get closer to the Plymouth community – and we are always looking for more people who we could help and who would like to join us every Thursday.”

  Source: Plymouth Herald 

Photo by Plymouth Herald

Photo by Plymouth Herald

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! Easter is the only time when you can put all your eggs in one basket and get away with it :)