The project titled „It is easy to teach – if you know how” was created in response to observed, by the partners organisations, difficulties with choosing the appropriate methods of teaching the elderly. Methods of teaching children, youth and adults have been widely developed. However, there are very few works on the methods of teaching seniors, which would consider perceptive capability of the students, resulting from the adequate to this age brain work. All the partners taking part in the project - Foundation “Aktywni XXI” (Poland) „e-seniors”(Francce) and Novedades Universidad de Mayores José Saramago (Spain), are organisations educating senior citizens. The objective of the project is developing scenarios for the language workshops, which can be used by language teachers of the partner organisations. Firstly, we would like to identify the needs of the seniors – why they want to learn foreign languages. Secondly, we would like to get to know the difficulties and obstacles that the seniors have during studying. The analysis of these two issues will allow us to develop English language workshops for seniors. They will consist of 9 thematic modules. Each partner will prepare scenarios and methodology for 3 modules. In preparing the modules, the partners will use their own experience in this field. Techniques such as educational games, elements of drama or e-learning will be used. The scenarios will be tested on the groups of seniors taught by the partner organisations and evaluated by the workshops participants. It will allow to make improvements to the scenarios so that they match the needs, expectations and possibilities of the seniors. They will also be available to other teachers, who during the conferences, seminars or workshops organised as a dissemination of the developed scenarios, will learn the new techniques of teaching foreign languages to seniors. Thanks to the cooperation of these three organisations, who have experience in working with seniors, we will be able to develop effective methods, which will use an interesting and senior-friendly way of teaching languages. The scenarios will be used in the following years, with the following groups of senior students – also after the projects has finished.The project coordinator will be the Polish partner – Foundation „Aktywni XXI”. Communication between partners will be direct (6 meetings during two years) and electronic (regular Skype discussions, created Facebook profile of the project and e-mail).It is important for us to disseminate widely the results of our work so we will upload the developed materials on partner organisations websites, on educational platforms (Epale) and on social networking sites e.g. Facebook. Furthermore, a poster and a leaflet with the information about the project and availability of the scenarios will be printed. In the final conference, in which local authorities, media and NGO representatives, foreign language teachers will be present, we will show a film presenting the project activities.
Lifelong learning is more and more popular among people over 50. Developing new interests, common learning and personal development are the reasons why more and more seniors take up learning. Learning languages is the most often chosen by seniors form of educating. Unfortunately there are very few materials for teaching seniors (50+) which take into consideration perceptual possibilities resulting from brain work adequate to this age. The partners in the project organize educational activities for seniors. Foundation „Aktywni XXI” runs Jelenia Góra 3rd Age Academy. E-Seniors is a nongovernmental, non-profit organization which organizes different forms of education for seniors including language courses. UNIVERSIDAD DE CASTILLA - LA MANCHA realises a three-year programme „Jose Saramago” for seniors in which there is also a course of English. All the partners’ organisations have problems resulting from the fact that there are very few methodological materials dedicated for the work with people over 50. That is the reason why the project, whose goal was to develop educational materials for teaching English to seniors, was created. In order to prepare materials which would activate the learners, be a pleasure and at the same time be effective in a relatively short time, we asked the seniors : - why they learn English and - what they consider to be the greatest difficulty in learning a foreign language. The answer to the first question enabled the choice of topics which would be interesting and pleasant for the learners. The answer to the second question let the teachers develop methods minimizing learning difficulties. Having collected that information, teachers working in the three partners organisations prepared 9 lesson plans, which then were used in the groups being taught in the organisations. The teachers presented their opinions about the conducted classes during the partners meetings. They discussed the ways of realising the lessons, possibilities to adjust the plans to the levels of the learners and other modifications. The lesson plans and the teachers comments were published in the brochure „How to teach people 50+” During the partners meetings there were Open Language Workshops organized for seniors. They were conducted by the teachers from partners organisations. The workshops were a form of dissemination of the project among the beneficiaries of the host organisations but they also allowed the learners of English to check their skills and believe that they are able to communicate in a foreign language. We informed about the project and its results in: - meetings of local organisations working in the area of teaching adults - international meetings (study visits and partners meetings with other organisations during the other projects) We finished the project with the summarizing seminar. English teachers from Jelenia Góra, specializing in teaching adults, were invited to the seminar. The project has measurable and long-term benefits. The lesson plans prepared during the project will be used by the teachers of partners organisations to conduct lessons with the seniors. The plans are also available for all the teachers working with the seniors. The Open Workshops conducted during International Project Meetings and discussions with seniors have led to writing a new project in which seniors will take an active part. The new project will also develop the partners cooperation.