METHODS EU Project meeting in Slovenia

Sandra, our Director of Academic Development & Training,  has recently returned from a METHODS EU Project meeting in Celje, Slovenia.

ETI is currently involved in 2 EU projects, CLIL4U and METHODS.

METHODS involves a  (TOI) Transfer of Innovation from a previous project called POOLS-M to other countries, primarily Guadeloupe, which is a French territory, Slovenia and Malta.
The participating teams at this meeting came from:
Malta (both ETI, and the main Vocational school in Malta – MCAST)
Guadeloupe
Denmark
Slovenia

The project involves 5 Methods, which were identified as useful in teaching languages to Vocational (VET) students. Vocational language training has suffered from a lack of materials, a gap,  METHODS has tried to fill.

The Methods are practical and particularly suited to Vocational Language Learning.

The 5 methods are:
-PhyEmoC (an approach which targets Physical, Emotional & Cultural areas)
– Task-based Learning
– Simulations
– CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning)
– e-Tandem (which involves students working in pairs, both as ‘teacher’ and ‘student’)

You can read more about these methods and download the manuals produced on the METHODS website. The materials are suitable for VET as well as for secondary level. These manuals have been updated  to reflect current thinking in Methodology and they are filled with ideas that you can use straight away or adapt to suit your students’ needs.

Please download the latest 2014 versions as this have been updated from the previous POOLS-M version!

ETI hosted the previous meeting for METHODS in April, but the last meeting in Celje was hosted by SSGT (Srednja šola za gostinstvo in turizem, Celje), which is a Slovenian Vocational school specialising in the Tourism Industry.

As a result, the students were able to show the teams present at the meeting their hospitality skills. Delicious culinary pastries were baked in the school’s kitchens, the students served the participants and two students took the team on a guided tour of Celje, which was extremely well-presented. Well done, SSGT students! All-in-all, a very professional experience.

The teams were also invited to observe a Simulations lesson at SSGT (Simulations is one of the main Project tasks allocated to the SSGT team). Also present at the observation and meeting was a representative from the Ministry of Education in Slovenia.The simulation worked wonderfully, and it was extremely heartening for the teams to see a simulation in action.

During the meeting, deadlines for the next few months were set. All the manuals are now being translated into Slovenian, Maltese, Danish and French.

The Slovenian team is now working on an International Work Placement Guide which should be invaluable for any teachers organising Work Placements, and for students going on Work Placements. This will probably become the essential handbook for Work Placements. Again, this has been updated from the previous version and is now more comprehensive.

Over the next few months, free courses within the different  countries will be run to disseminate the ideas and methodology produced in METHODS.

The next meeting will be held in Malta, in May 2015. For more information regarding this project or our courses please feel free to contact us.