8th Anniversary of Almond Vocational Link Plymouth

This January we have a very good reason to celebrate, it has been just over 8 years since Almond Vocational Link opened it's doors for the first time.

Since then we have met hundreds of wonderful students, work placement providers and host families. We have also managed to gather a great team of individuals who work very hard every day to ensure that everything runs smoothly. You can find out more about them all here 

It has been a very successful 8 years for Almond, our Plymouth English Language School has grown and is now offering courses for local foreign speakers. We established a new Plymouth Language Cafe which helps foreign speakers to improve their English and enables them to integrate better. 

In the near future we are hoping to build on this experience and expand our English Language services even further with a new business venture coming in 2015. 

We would like to sincerely thank you all for supporting us over the years and continuing to name Almond Vocational Link your preffered KA1 and KA2 Erasmus+ project partner for the UK. 

If you are seeking UK partner to work with on your Erasmus+ KA1 or KA2 project, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Our European Project Manager Mrs Janet Wonnacott janetw@almondvoclink.co.uk  is always happy to answer your inquiries. Please take a look at some of the projects we took part in and don’t forget to read the Testimonials left by our project partners, students and University Erasmus+ Coordinators.

To find out more about our services please visit our website

Halloween Language Cafe

This week we decided to get you all into the spirit of Halloween!

Since the Language Cafe falls one day before, we thought it might be a good idea to carve some pumpkins and make your own Jack O'Lantern.

We know many of you don't really celebrate Halloween in your home countries, it's not a typically British tradition either, but certainly a fun one.

You can bring your own pumpkin or one to share with your friend, alternatively please get in touch with Gabi gabrielem@almondvoclink.co.uk and she will order one for you, that will be delivered to our office. 

PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT

Oh and if you would like to join the Language Cafe Facebook group, email us with a request, we will happily add you  :) 

Hope to see many of you there, watch this space for the photos :) 

Bowling with our Language Cafe friends

This week we moved our Language Cafe to Wednesday, a very rare thing for us to do but certainly justified in this case. The group was very keen on going bowling and I'm not going to lie, we loved the idea too :) 

Language Cafe is all about learning English through experience and lively interaction and that's exactly what we did. Our lovely apprentice, Gabi took on her shoulders the task of organising the group. She booked 2 a track at the Tenpin Bowling located in the Barbican Leisure Centre. The access to this complex can be a bit tricky if you are not confident at moving around Plymouth but with a little help of Google maps and City Bus travel map you shouldn't have much trouble. 

If you choose to access the area via Barbican lock gates ( bridge leading to the Aquarium) please remember that the bridge shuts for the night at 9.30pm

Tenpin offers some really good deals throughout the week, please check their website to see which one suits you best.

The Language Cafe will go back to its usual format from next week, join our Facebook group to keep up to date. For more things to do and places to see whilst in Plymouth, please go to our website

Visit to the Royal William Yard

We love showing the students how beautiful our city really is. Plymouth is currently experiencing some lovely warm weather after a bit of a damp end of the summer, so we decided to make a good use out of it :) 

Usually on the first day we take our students to the Plymouth Hoe and the Barbican for their welcome tour, show off  the historical sights and the beauty of Sutton Harbour. Afterwards we briefly walk through the Plymouth City Centre, so that they know where to get all their essentials from. What we often do miss out is the stunning Royal William Yard! This area  is bursting with stunning architectural sights and breath taking views across the Plymouth Sound and River Tamar. We thought those were good enough reasons to visit and therefore invited our students for a little walk and a coffee stop. 

We all met in the Almond's office at City Business Park and took a brisk walk to the nearby bus stop in Stoke Village, to catch the number 34 bus :) After only a few minutes atop of a double-decker we could see the glistening waters of River Tamar and soon after the magnificent Royal William Yard 's entrance gate.

We had a fantastic time walking around, exploring the area and learning its history. Climbing up the famous Coastal Path Staircase comes highly recommended, the views are spectacular and it's an absolutely perfect spot for a picnic. To end our day, we watched the sun slowly sink under the horizon as we sat outside of Seco Lounge with a delicious cappuccino in hand.  We will definitely be back soon and more regularly :) 

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 

Language Cafe at the Tudor Rose Tea Rooms

Join us for some delicious, homemade scones and traditional English tea at the Tudor Rose Tea Rooms. Tudor Rose is located at the Barbican's famous New Street - the oldest street in Plymouth. The building's historical features, charming decor and delicious scones make it a perfect location to explore English culture and improve the language. 

This week one of our MMLT online training teachers - Daniela, will be delivering her Montessori Lesson to the group.

Please call our office 01752 224446 or email Gabriele gabrielem@almondvoclink.co.uk to book

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.