In the period between August 8 and 13, we have participated in the "In English, please" activity, which has been held in Porto, Portugal, by Learning Together EU.
The main objectives pursued with this training activity were the following:
- Enhancement of linguistic skills
- Enrichment of oral communication skills
- Creative ideas to make our classes more lively and interactive
- Practical activities for teaching challenging classes
- Enhancement of participants' knowledge, skills and competencies related to our work practice
- To increase confidence in speaking in public, articulating clear questions and ideas in class discussion
- Transfer and sharing core values experiences and effective teaching practices with other teachers and colleagues
- Provide teachers with an insight into Porto culture and heritage
Day 1 - 8th August 2021
We arrived at Porto in the afternoon and had a welcome dinner that evening to meet the Learning Together staff and our fellow participants (4 teachers from Poland and 4 teachers from Spain, including myself) and socializing while enjoying deliciuous Portuguese dishes.
Day 2 - 9th August 2021
The following day we met at San Bento Station a bit earlier in the morning to have a walk to the place where the course was going to take place.
Once we arrived at the Learning Together facilities, we continued with the presentation of the course, where Carlos and Manuela (our teacher for the course), explained to us the course outline and the schedule of activities for the week.
After that we were encouraged to make a presentation of ourselves, our background, interests and expectations about the course.
Then we started with some hands-on activities about English in action, regarding pronunciation and some common mistakes when speaking in English.
We also learned some games to be used as ice-breakers of for warm-up purposes.
To start with our session we commenced presenting different traditions from our countries. It was quite interesting to know how some of these traditions have similar counterparts in other countries, althoug, of course, some of them are particularly ours.
Next part of the lesson was devoted to have a Grammar overview and focus on what pieces of grammar are particularly difficult for ESL students, as well as different approaches to teaching grammar in class.
Manuela recommended these books as a support tool for our grammar topics in class.
We continued with tips for teaching and learning vocab, focusing on the use of rephrasing activities to foster students autonomy and the development of relations between vocab, grammar and usage.
We reviewed and put in common some useful ICT apps and tools for the English class, such as:
And we could share with our colleagues different experiences using them.
We also learn how to apply some NLP strategies and techniques to be used in the English class, such as the Star of Values, which could help students to get more involved. Where the students have to write down 3 words for five given categories (family, money, social life, love, inner peace), then choose one of them in each category and finally choosing the most relevant one (that it is supposed to define them)
The same day in the afternoon, at 14:30 we met with Carlos at the Praca da Liberdade to start our walking tour of Porto, in English, to know more about Porto history, traditions and heritage.
The visit was wonderful and we could enjoy the beautiful city of Porto, its streets, views and main monuments.
Porto heritage activity.
We had an organized trip in Porto, using the Yellow Bus hop on/off, to discover more about Porto heritage and history.
The whole tour was in English and we had to take notes to complete a quiz the following day.
After completing our quizz on our previous day activity with the Yellow Bus, we continued with the use of Idiomatic Expressions (Idioms) to enrich the students vocabulary and also learn more about the target language culture.
We also learnt different approaches to the learning of prepositions, which in some cases may result difficult to ESL students.
We also had the opportunity to have an insight of Portugal's Educational System and how language learning is tackled.
We finished with a fluency workshop with different exercises.
Day 6 - 13th August 2021
We started focusing on the use of films and drama in the classroom, and how these could help students to participate.
We also commented as well on the use of innovative techniques in the classroom, such as escape rooms.
And finally it was the time to make our final presentations of the course, where we explained in a more detailed way aspects of our schools, background, teaching plans, projects, our students, our cities, ...
After our presentations, we made an overview session, including the evaluation of the course.
I must point out that the organization created and shared a directory in Google Drive where all the materials and resources used during the course were available to all of us. Nice touch!
And finally we received our certificates while having a glass of nice Porto wine!
To conclude, we can say that it has been a quite interesting course, which surely will help on the design of our English classes back at our schools.
We have learnt new ways to approach the teaching of grammar, pronunciation and also how to foster oral communication with our students through different strategies and the use of varied resources.
The staff from Learning Together EU have been very helpul, proactive and nice throughout the course, making the course more enjoyable.
And last but not least, it has been enriching to know colleagues from different parts of the world, offering their experiences, their points of view and setting the basis for future exchanges and cooperation projects within the Erasmus scope. All in such a beautiful and friendly city as it is Porto.
