Working as a language teacher for senior citizens puts demands on the teacher´s didactical, methodical and social skills. The training course is meant to exchange and to improve knowledge and skills needed for successful teaching. The training will be offered in Germany and in France at the following dates: 07.04 - 11.04.2008 and 02.06 - 06.06.2008. The course fee is 1000 €, it includes cost of participation, training materials, half board and cultural study visit.
Thematic field of the course is: methodology of languages teaching of senior learners
The course is addressed to language teachers, language trainers working in adult education sector: adult education providers, adult education for disabled persons, Organisations working with migrant groups/ethnic minorities and others.
The main objective of the course is to improve the quality of senior learners´ language teaching .within the context of life-long-learning.
Additionally we focus on:
- introducing new learning contents into language learning concepts, which enable training providers to reach an increasing and important target group (seniors),
- raising skills of language trainers in order to motivate senior learners to learn a foreign language and to avoid their drop-out,
- introducing new methods and techniques oriented on the special needs of senior learners, to bring together a mixed European team of experts and participants, who will become more sensitive to intercultural diversity in the process of collaboration.
Our methodology:
The main pedagogical principles are based upon participation, empowerment, inclusion and development of intercultural skills. During the course the following methods will be applied: collaborative learning, self-conducted and situated learning, problem-solving approaches to learning.
Programme of the course:
Introduction: Life-span psychology: physical ageing, cognitive process, social aspects, Europe-the greying society;
Characteristics of language learning senior citizens: perception about older learners: participants' experiences with senior learners, motivation of senior learners; learning environments: new learning settings, new learning places;
Challenges for teaching languages to seniors and tools for solution: -social aspects of teaching senior learners, empowerment by biographical work, raising self-esteem;
Put into practice-specific challenges of delivering languages courses in theory and practice (vocabulary, grammar, speaking skills, reading skills, learning strategies).
Evaluation of the participants' achievements;
Cultural study visit.
Date of event
07.04-11.04.2008 Munich, Germany; 02.06-06.06.2008 Montpellier, France
Participation fee:
1000,00 €
Last date for registrations:
The deadline for the course in Munich is 31 October 2007; the second deadline for the course in Montpellier is 31 March 2008
Web site:
www.senior-language.com
Contact email:
kdoerr@vhs-cham.de
