"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

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

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

New Year, new Almond!

New Year, new Almond!

www.almondvoclink.co.uk

We are very proud to announce that we now have a new website. This is something we planned for a little while and are very excited about. We chose to move away from the complicated html and upgrade to a Word Press site. 

We asked a small, local media company to help us with the initial set up. They showed us how to use WP, post news, update pages and change the look of it. We are very excited as this means we will be able to keep you all up to date! 

Next time you visit our website, be sure to have a look at our new Student Zone. We have created this page to promote our student's achievements, projects and the effects of their work during their time here. Soon we will share some articles they wrote and useful tips for all our future participants.

If you have any suggestions, comments or ideas you would like to share with us, please leave a comment below :) 

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

Programmes and Projects

   In recent years, we have gained a vast amount of valuable experience in dealing with large       scale, EU supported educational programmes. We have worked with partners from across Europe     and actively participate in projects that help to educate, integrate and give access to gain new skills and widen horizons of our participants. 

ERASMUS +

LEONARDO DA VINCI MOBILITY

LEONARDO DA VINCI PARTNERSHIP

GRUNTVIG

VETPRO

CITIZENSHIP

ERASMUS

All of the above programmes are a part of the European Comission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. Our company strongly believes in working closely with other European Partners towards improving and developing educational methods, influencing others to remain in education and gain knowledge through new experiences. These projects improve integration, develop and implement innovative teaching methods, break language barriers and give others a great chance to explore new opportunities, gain new skills and qualifications. Almond Vocational Link strongly believes in the objectives promoted by these programmes and with many years of experience and dedication in supporting those, we are proud of our achievements.

STAFF SENSE LdV Mobility Project

“Increasing the quality of the STAFF responsible for the period of SEN Student’s vocational Education, STAFF SENSE”. Almond Vocational Link was involved in this project alongside with other participating institutions from countries like Turkey, Germany, Spain, Poland, Italy, and Greece. Staff Sense was aimed at students with Special Educational Needs who wish to continue their education in a vocational high school to gain a profession and become independent in their adult lives.

VETPRO LdV Mobility Project

European Union Countries Experience of Vocational Practical training planning by educating qualified workers for hotel, restaurant, and public catering enterprise. Almond Vocational Link hosted 8 guests from Lithuania, representatives of the catering industry and Chamber of Commerce in November 2011.The focus of the programme was to provide an insight of the UK catering Industry and Training of the Hospitality staff.

P.I.T.A.G.O.R.A Grundtvig Project

  Almond Vocational Link was responsible for coordination of this project. Potentiate Integration and Task for Adult learners giving them Opportunities for Relations All over Europe The PIT-GOR project aims at promoting education, cooperation, interchange and the mobility of disadvantage adult group (immigrants, ethnic minorities, etc. ) coming from European areas at risk regarding social exclusion, focusing on maths as a skill needed to be potentate. This project was focused around adult learners, teachers, trainers and education staff

MMLT (Montessori Methodology in Language Training)

 MMLT is another project funded by European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme that Almond Vocational Link is proud to be part of. In this project, we focus on the already successful Montessori teaching methods and exploring the ways to implement these in adult language training. This project involves working with partners from Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland and Romania.

"Europe for Citizens” Programme

Europe for Citizens is aimed at ethnic minorities, promoting debate and reflection on existing    policies in Europe, specifically European Strategy 2020, bringing them closer to the objectives    and guidelines, strengthening active citizenship in their community. One of the objectives of this  programme was to enhance tolerance and mutual understanding between European citizens  and give the participants opportunity to interact and help constructing a tighter-knit Europe,      united and enriched by its cultural diversity

                                

                                www.almondvoclink.co.uk