MMLT online and face to face training for language teachers

In the recent months we put a lot of work and dedication in a project we are the UK partner for. Being a part of  the MMLT project, changed the way we visualize our company's  future of English language training courses. One of the most significant and sustainable results of the Montessori project is our recently opened Language Cafe. 

You have probably read quite a lot about it on here and on our website/social media platforms. We are extremely proud of this achievement and believe it genuinely improves the lifestyle of many local foreign nationals and also improves the quality of the service we can offer to our European students during their stay. 

During the piloting part of this project, Almond Vocational Link was to deliver teacher training sessions for language trainers in both face-to-face and online version. We received a tremendous amount of feedback, and those who managed to complete the training, admitted they will continue to use Montessori as their preferred method during language training. 

Two members of Almond's team participated in the training sessions delivered by Mrs Karen Corne. Valentina took part in the face-to-face training, Kamila participated in the online course. Both of them are actively involved in the running of our Montessori Language Cafe, therefore receiving training and giving invaluable feedback on the matter was very important to us. As a part of their training, they were asked to prepare lesson plans for a group of adult learners. Our trainees delivered their lesson plans to the students during our Language Cafe with great results.

We managed to capture some of the lessons on camera and we would love to share it with you. In addition to this, we also asked a local company to create a video documenting one of the lessons. Please take a look and feel free to share, its a fantastic opportunity to see how our students from Turkey and Portugal interacted and worked together during the class. 

               

                                     

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

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:

Language Cafe 13/02/2014

On Thursday 13th February, we hosted our first Language Cafe event. This weekly event is part of the Montessori Methodology in Language Training (for adults 20+) project that we are working on. 

This event is aimed at foreign language speakers who would like to improve their English, learn more about the culture, integrate and meet new friends. Each week we will be providing some fun educational activities, so called "ice-breakers" that will help us get to know each other and encourage to speak freely. 

Language Cafe is not a sit-down lesson, you will not need any books or notebooks. Going with the Montessori theme, we will be promoting learning through experience. 

Our first session saw participants from Germany, Romania, Belgium, Finland and Italy getting to know each other, talking about their time in Plymouth and also listening to a presentation prepared by one of our students - Sunda

If you would like to take part in next week's Language Cafe, please email

 Mrs Janet Wonnacott  janetw@almondvoclink.co.uk

For more information about Almond visit 

www.almondvoclink.co.uk

One of the activities we used

Montessori Methodology in Language Training for Adults - Meeting

Attention language teachers! 

We are involved in European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programmes project aiming to develop a new method that will improve the quality of language learning for adults and university students (20+). We would like to invite you to a meeting that will be held in our office - City Business Park on 

Saturday 25th January 2014 10.00-12.00

Book your FREE ticket 

The aim of our meeting is to extend our knowledge of this methodology and invite you to further training sessions on 22nd and 23rd February 2014 which will concern the research and the piloting of this project. All participants will receive a certificate attesting their contribution to the project which is based on a manual realized by our international partners. 

Please note that the training course and certificate are FREE of charge, however will only be given to those who part-take in the whole research process. 

To find out more about other projects we are worked on in the past please see our previous post "Programmes and Projects"

http://mmlt.eu/

Lifelong Learning Programme