Roman Krebes is a methodologist and lecturer of our partner, in the national consortium in the adult education sector, PLUS Academia spol. In the following article, he describes his participation in the two-week CLIL methodical course, which took place in the beautiful English seaside town of Scarborough at the Anglolang Academy.
I work as a methodologist and Trainer English at PLUS Academia, an educational institution with more than 20 years of history. Continuous education is the alpha and omega of the progress of every single language tutor, I am absolutely convinced of that. That's why I attended the CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) course as a participant Trainer within the Erasmus + KA1 HAPPY SCHOOL 2020 project, which is a national consortium of three partners – HARMONY ACADEMY, IPA Slovakia and PLUS Academie. The aim of this project is to create an environment for the life of the school, which is defined as a school with an international dimension, high quality, availability of services and a lifelong learning system of the entire organization.
This two-week CLIL course took place in Scarborough (UK). In the course, we used a wide range of communication, reading and writing activities, providing a variety of interactions and open discussions between participants, all with the aim of developing language competences and building teachers' confidence in teaching through English. In the morning block, we addressed current topics to supplement our vocabulary and they were also exercises that we can also use for our teaching needs in Slovakia. They were interesting, a person had a natural tendency to talk about them and at the same time educated himself with them. In the afternoon block dedicated specifically to CLIL theory and practice, the practical requirements of CLIL were addressed. The international dimension of the course was also interesting, as each participant was from a different country, which allowed us to exchange views on our different experiences and specificities of CLIL teaching.
As an active participant, I had the opportunity to expand my specific vocabulary and participate in practical group methodical sessions that provided me with new ideas and materials that I can use in the HAPPY SCHOOL project. I am convinced that the teaching in the form of CLIL, its focus on both higher and lower cognitive abilities of students and the overall way of teaching, as well as my acquired information, I will be able to pass on in the future to other lecturers participating in the HAPPY SCHOOL 2020 project for their further education, and overall this method will be helpful to the successful completion of our project.
Roman Krebes, PLUS Academia spol.
