Thank you

Many thanks to all who turned up to our Thursday Language Cafe at Tudor Rose Tea Rooms.

This event was very well attended and we all had a great time. Daniela Sonvakova did a fantastic job at delivering her Montessori English Language lesson to all the students present. 

If you would like read a bit more about what we were up to and see all the photos, please head to our website 

Certificate Ceremonies May 2014

As well as welcoming new arrivals, we also waved goodbye to some of our groups. It was great to have you all here and we wish you all the best in your future career.

Here are the photos from certificate ceremonies in May 2014:

From Denmark

From Czech Republic

 From Finland

 www.almondvoclink.co.uk

    

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

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