Language teaching of adults is currently of high demand in Europe; in 2002 the "mother-tongue-plus-two" strategy was launched, which plea all Europeans to know at least two foreign languages and since 2015, the increased arrival of refugees and migrants have resulted in bigger classes for national language teaching. Yet, the language teachers' opportunities for up qualification in order to overcome the new demands, have not followed the development i.e. due to national policies, market mechanisms and financial underprioritizing. This project: "Videobased Peer Practice Among Language Teachers" (V-PAL) addresses the growing need for competence development among language teachers. It will develop an online learning community among European language teachers that exchange teaching methodologies through short videos and give feedback on them. The main target group are language teachers, who teach adults in either the national language of the host country or in foreign languages. The secondary target group are the course-participants, who are expected to benefit from the language teachers' increased awareness of their teaching methodologies and improved teaching-competences. The project aims to: - extend and develop the language teachers' teaching methodologies - facilitate access to a professional learning community consisting of language teachers across Europe - increase the language teachers' awareness and reflections of their didactic approach (planning of the course in relation to learning goal and method) - improve communicative skills through the technical and practical process of developing short videos and sharing them with colleagues To accomplish this, the project will develop: 1: A Videobased Peer Practice training course that focuses on teaching methodologies and video-recording. Thus, how to make a script of the video, the technical set-up and editing, and the importance of identifying the learning goal of the course as well as reflecting on the outcome of the method. 2: A V-PAL platform that will serve as the online meeting point for the teachers, where they can upload their videos and give feedback to the other teachers' videos in a blog- post. 3: A handbook that will function as a manual on how to develop a script, record the videos, upload them on the V-PAL platform and give constructive feedback. A short introduction movie will be made in order to visualize the material of the handbook. 4: An evaluation that will focus on the user-experiences and learning potential of the V-PAL methodology, hereby making it possible to improve V-PAL before the dissemination. Aside from these tangible outcomes, the project will also host three Teacher Training Events (two online and one face-to-face) in order to train the language teachers in the V-PAL methodology. The first online event will focus on how to give specific attention to didactic and teaching methodologies in relation to video recording. The second Teacher Training Event will be face-to-face and train the teachers in video production and feedback initiatives through hands-on experiences. The third online event will follow up on the teachers' experiences, obstacles and success with V-PAL. The project is expected to: -Improve the language teachers' possibilities for easy accesible and qualified competence-development -Enhance the language teachers' competences in visual and online communication and their technical skills -Develop a professional learning community among language teachers -Offer a new methology for peer practice among teachers that combines video filming and constructive feedback in order to strengthen awarness of teaching methodologies and generate inspiration. Potential longer term benefits: The project develops a learning platform, a handbook and a short video that will remain available to use for five years after the project period. This is expected to expand the network of language teachers. An effective dissemination plan will secure that the project results will be spread to relevant language centers and other national and international educational institutions. Finally, the course-participants i.e. refugees, migrants, early school drop-outs and unemployed, are expected to benefit from the teachers' up qualifications in the daily teaching session.
Description above already in English.