Learning and Sharing for Better Teaching

The project Learning and Sharing for Better Teaching has been created by English Language Teachers’ Association of Serbia (ELTA Serbia) with an idea to provide English language teachers with a new, innovative and up-to-date teacher trainings which would help them improve their teaching skills and competencies.

ELTA is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization which brings together teachers of English in Serbia at all educational levels, representatives of schools and institutions interested in development of the profession, from both state and private sector, as well as future teachers, university students of English. The main goal of ELTA is to promote English language teaching and professional development of English language teachers in Serbia. ELTA encourages the exchange of good practices among English teachers by organizing workshops, seminars, lectures, conferences and other professional development activities, and cooperates with other similar associations both locally and internationally.

The project participants have been selected among ELTA Board members who bear responsibility for organizing professional development events with the aim of further development of the Association. They have seen Erasmus+ project scheme not only as an opportunity for developing their personal teaching competencies but as a chance to create and offer new training courses and teaching material to all English teachers in Serbia.

The objective of the project is to improve the quality of English language teaching in Serbia by upgrading teachers’ skills and competencies. To accomplish this, six team members will attend professional development training courses in the UK. During the training abroad the participants will gain an insight into latest methodologies regarding teaching students with special learning difficulties and creating an inclusive environment, the use of technology in the classroom, the use of creative methodology and drama techniques as well as the new ways of teaching advanced and talented students including coaching techniques.

Apart from acquiring the new knowledge, the course participants will improve their personal communication skills by spending time in the English speaking country in a multicultural environment.

The hosting organization was chosen after a careful research using SEG platform.

Being actively involved in teacher training, after completing the courses, the course participants will develop a series of half-day seminars based on the courses they attended with the aim to share their knowledge with other English language teachers in Serbia. The seminars will improve digital competencies of teachers, equip them to work with students with learning difficulties and present innovative methods and approaches to teaching. These seminars will be delivered in different towns in Serbia. They will also create a set of classroom activities to be shared with the wider EFL audience.

The dissemination will take place through the following activities:

1) Creating and organizing half-day seminars in six towns in Serbia from December 2018 to April 2019.

2) Designing an E-Resource Pack that will contain ready-to-use classroom activities. The E-Resource Pack will be distributed via ELTA network.

3) Developing and delivering a workshop to present the project at the ELTA annual conference in May 2019.

4) Publishing reports on the project in the ELTA Newsletter.

The participants will use different types of analysis and evaluation, such as questionnaires, checklists or self-assessment forms to see to what extent the objectives of the project have been achieved.

During the courses the participants will engage in conversation with other teachers and reflect about the course content. After the courses, the team will analyze their newly acquired skills.

The whole period of dissemination will be monitored. The number of teachers who attended the seminars will be recorded and the attendees will fill in the evaluation forms after the seminars. This will give an insight into if the objectives, and to what extent, have been achieved. Also, the number of downloads of the E-Resource Pack will indicate the number of teachers reached by the product.

The expected results of the project are enhancing teachers’ competencies in the field of digital literacy, equipping teachers to work with SEN and talented students and to use innovative teaching methods and approaches. This will lead to creating more enthusiastic and inspiring atmosphere in the classroom and hopefully, students of English in Serbia will also benefit from the project, being more motivated to actively participate in the lessons, which will result in a better acquisition of the English language.

In the long run, the course participants will be able to create new seminars, workshops and teaching material based on what they learned while attending summer courses.