Working in partnership
Working with other HEIs
Articles and resource support
| Summaries
Working in partnership with HEIs and schools (pdf), Comenius, London (2005) Links, 32
The London Modern Foreign Languages Partnership has put much effort into working collaboratively on various projects. One of these projects is about the development of a collaborative approach to school experience placements. The article gives details about the creation of a ‘clearing house’ as part of this project.
Another project is about carrying out joint mentors’ work. A document called Guidance for MFL mentors in the London area was created as a result of this collaborative effort and is available from the Working with mentors section.
Initial teacher-training initiative gives boost to early language learning (pdf), (2002) Early Language Learning Bulletin, 8
Following an agreement between the French and British governments, five
English ITE providers and five Instituts Universitaires pour la Formation
des Maîtres (IUFMs) have become partners in a joint teacher-training initiative.
This article reports on their experience and in particular the trainees’
exchange which is at the heart of the project.
Lingua and Erasmus: circumventing the constraints (pdf), Chambers G. (1994) Language Learning Journal, 10, pp39-41
The article aims to help ITT tutors maximise the benefits of a residential experience abroad for their student teachers, and to recommend the inclusion of such ventures in MFL ITT.
It does so by analysing the challenges presented to a particular student cohort visiting Germany in 1992 to enhance their understanding of vocational education in the target language country and create their own multi-media resources for their future career in-post. Thus the experience addressed language, intercultural understanding and cross-curricular skill enhancement issues. The challenges related to funding the visit via EU grants are historical and may no longer apply in the detail, but serve as a reminder that visit organisers need to understand the evolved funding procedures for the various sectors of education, now under the umbrella of the Socrates programme. However, still of relevance are the points made about preparation and planning of such a visit.
The article concludes with a challenge to UK governments to play their
part in ensuring continued funding for such ventures if they are serious
about preparing teachers to teach the European dimension as a cross-currcular
issue and better prepare our pupils for work in a wider cultural and linguistic
framework; in the light of the findings of the Nuffield Inquiry, it is questionable
whether this challenge has been taken up.
