Despite the overwhelming allocation of media time to issues concerning refugees and other newcomers to Europe, it is easy for people involved directly in efforts to educate and otherwise integrate these people within local communities to feel isolated in their endeavours. As teachers at the Schule des Zweiten Bildungsweges Dahme-Spreewald near Berlin involved in teaching a small but growing number of foreign students from a diverse range of nationalities, it was really only last December when a group of teachers from Oslo Voksenopplæring Sinsen visited our school that we came to realise that we are not alone in our goal to finding better ways to involve and integrate newcomers from other countries to our local society. Our visitors from Oslo provided us with a very helpful description of problems and other issues they face on a daily basis concerning many of their adult education course students, both locals and foreigners. Just as importantly, the staff from Oslo Voksenopplæring Sinsen described their methods and other approaches to addressing these issues and how they are involved in on-going assessment,evaluation and improvement of their ground-breaking work as a school in the metropolitan Oslo area where 80% of their clientele comes from overseas directly or an overseas background, making language learning a key issue to be tackled day in day out.The number of students who are foreign-born or whose parents are foreign-born continues to rise. Common issues for both local and foreign students include maintaining motivation and working out exactly what they want to do and can realistically achieve while at school with us and thereafter in a career or further study. The process can end up taking longer than originally anticipated. We need to revise or begin with basic alphabet skills, then spelling and numeracy before joining all this together with basic computer skills to help prepare students for work outside. Working together on resumés is one example of how we have found a way to couple newly won abilities with self-awareness of those and other talents which then helps the individual student to see what really matters and how they can begin to take ownership of their own education and personal development. By concentrating on recent positive experiences, students build confidence to think, speak and write for and about themselves. They can finally move on from earlier negative occurrences. In this way, we are helping to rebuild young lives.In order to be flexible in our multiple approaches to re-educating young people, we have found that being open to new concepts and practices which achieve better results can only help both our staff and students. To develop better thinking and speaking skills, so that young people can learn to be confident about what they see, read, hear and feel is right, and therefore are less prone to be radicalised or otherwise fall in with ‘the wrong crowd’, we are keen to explore the opportunities provided by ‘thinking tools’. In this sense, our three schools in Norway, Germany and Spain are focused on achieving best teaching practices in adult second-chance education. Our previous programs with other schools in Europe have concentrated on teaching methods involving information technology (IT), the broadening of curriculum activities and support structures, including assessment and accreditation. This experience has only shown how direct communication with other institutions abroad is of crucial importance to our ultimate short and long term goals of helping our adult students.
At application time Europe had a large stream of refugees that came across the Mediterranean. It was a challenge for the European countries to handle the refugee flow as we did not have any systems in place. This was a reality for the partners Germany, Norway and partly Spain could relate to.So it became a necessity to develop good practices for adult language learning. The refugee should have language training and they should start or complete an education in the new language. These schools have also adults who have previously fallen out of the school system and need more education. The aim of the project has been to develop adult-adapted methods where new knowledge is based on the resources that the adult students possess. Adult students have acquired knowledge throughout their lives, and they have experiences that are important to explore. Their background and ability to reflect have been an important part of the project. Gaining new knowledge through reflection creates understanding and in-depth learning. The new knowledge becomes part of the learner and not just something that is memorized and reproduced. In this project, it has been important to work with methods that make new learning lasting knowledge. In this way, students expand their horizons and grow as human beings. Methods that create understanding and commitment in mathematics have also been a part in this project, as many of the adult students struggle with maths. Those who must learn math in a new language also have language challenges, as it is not just the mathematical skills they need to acquire. They should be able to understand texts and read mathematical problems, which indicates that language understanding is also important in this subject. The three organizations involved in this project are: Oslo Adult Education Centre Sinsen has several vocational and general programmes. There are 1400 adult students ranging in age from 20 to 60 with the majority aged 25-30. About 50 % of the students undertake a general education course, the others are enrolled in vocational programmes. The Centre is responsible for providing official assessment of real competences in accordance with national learning objectives and national curricula. Our students come from all over the world: 80 % of them have foreign backgrounds with some still needing help learning the Norwegian language. The Centre's aim is to help the students complete their upper secondary education and pass the relevant final exams. At Schule des Zweiten Bildungswege Damne-spreewald, students get a second or third chance to succeed. One of the ultimate aims is - by improving their basic literacy and numeracy skills as well as thinking capacities - to best prepare them for working life and college or university studies. Die Schule is a government school dedicated to providing the best quality courses possible to students making their second or third attempt at completing a secondary school course in order to graduate with a certificate recognised across the country, thereby enabling them to enter a particular career or move on to college or university. The school has more than 300 pupils aged 17 to 45. Escuela Official de Idiomas Ronda is a vocational School to teach both German and English to their students during a practical in-country internship in either Germany or England. Such in-country immersion enables successful social and cultural integration with their host country. The institution is state-run and certifies the level of language skills our students attain according to the Common European Framework of Reference. The focus in our common project has been Thinking Matters and the methods related to it. Topics directly connected to teaching are such as. Systematic writing by using mind maps, collaborative learning, critical thinking, use of online learning, reflective conversations, concept stretching To be truly prepared to teach and develop skills needed further into the 21st century, we as schools have developed teaching methodologies to ensure students acquire the right valuable practical thinking skills and associated cognitive and metacognitive strategies. As time progresses, we and our successors will need to be constantly pro-active in ensuring an awareness of the correct practical skills called for as technology and society develop, and exactly how to design courses around the relevant teaching methodologies to guarantee such best teaching practices are maintained with all our various student groups. In this project, the overall goal has been to identify, develop and share effective motivational methods and best teaching practices which can make adult students more pro-active in taking responsibility for their own learning, thereby leading to better performance. Concrete results centre around our project portfolio comprising detailed descriptions of newly developed innovative teaching methods, motivational and other thinking tools.