Atlas Erasmus Newsletter November 2024

Welcome to our November newsletter! Here we dive into the vibrant world of Erasmus+ adventures and educational insights, highlighting the diverse experiences and endeavors of the past month.

October 2024 Erasmus+ Courses

October saw Atlas run the following courses: Language, Methodology and Culture (LMC), Digital Transitions and Sustainability in Education. Highlights included our first visit to the Leprechaun Museum with Erasmus+ participants, and it was a huge hit!

Don’t forget that we’re still accepting enrolments for the abovementioned courses, plus English for Admin Staff, in the weeks beginning December 9th and 16th. Remember that General English Training runs all year round in both Dublin and Malta, starting on any Monday.

Get in touch if you’d like to sign up for any of these!

See our Erasmus+ web page and brochure for more details of all our courses and scheduled dates for this and next year!

What happened in October?

Atlas Malta welcomed an amazing #ErasmusPlus group from VucKlar, an adult education centre in Slagelse, Denmark, for a programme focused on Erasmus+ Sustainability and Citizenship. They took part in interactive sessions about green issues, inclusivity and diversity, as well as exploring individual and community wellbeing, and the final day involved giving poster presentations about the topics they’d discussed. All participants showed fantastic participation and it was refreshing to hear the group’s passion about a range of important global issues! We wish all the participants the best in their future studies and hope that our paths cross again at some point in the future!

Our Erasmus+ Coordinator, Paul Finnerty, gave a presentation at the annual TESOL Hungary conference in Siófok. The talk was entitled: ‘The Paradox of AI in Assessment and Homework: how to design written tasks that embrace AI tools but still demand student creativity and independent thought’. The event was well organised with many workshops held over the weekend, and it was certainly a worthwhile learning experience for all in attendance!

Atlas has been busy visiting schools around Poland in October, stopping off at John Paul II School in Koszęcin, the Catholic School in Płock, and Adama Mickiewicza High School in Piastów. We delivered workshops for students on Irish Culture, plus sessions entitled ‘How to Become a More Sustainable Student’, while teachers took part in training sessions on a range of topics, from AI and Digital Tools to preparing students for writing their International Baccalaureate (IB) Extended Essays.

Students were very curious and particularly surprised by the nuances of Irish sports, while others thought more deeply about how changing small habits could have ecological benefits for the school. Teachers were thrilled to discover new digital tools that will make their planning more efficient and lessons more dynamic!

Adama Mickiewicza High School in Piastów

If you’d like Atlas to deliver free teacher training at your school or university in Europe, then please get in touch with Paul at paul.f@atlaslanguageschool.com.

Where will Atlas be with Erasmus+ in November?

Atlas will again be on the road in Poland later in the month, delivering a series of student workshops on Irish culture and sustainability, plus teacher training on topics ranging from using AI and Digital Tools in the classroom to experimenting with alternative lesson shapes and exploiting YouTube videos for vocabulary. We’ll be in Mierzęcice, Łódź, Poznań and Purda, so keep an eye out on social media and in the next newsletter for updates!

Webinars

In October we held a cultural webinar: ‘Halloween Stories in Irish and British Culture’. Attendees learned about traditional Halloween stories and consequently explored different ways of using these stories in the classroom to enhance language learning and student engagement. By the way, Contact us if you’d like access to a recording of this session, or any of our previous methodological or cultural webinars.

Furthermore, on Wednesday November 20th at 1700 Irish time (1800 CET), we’ll be holding a 75-minute professional development webinar on the topic of ‘An Introduction to Mindfulness and Wellbeing’, hosted by Atlas’ Mindfulness and Wellbeing instructor, Sara Perry. Participants will get a glimpse into what Mindfulness actually means and how its principles can be applied in our daily lives, as well as discovering the content of our new 2025 Erasmus Plus staff training course: Mindfulness and Wellbeing in Education. Here is the sign up link.

Ahead of this webinar, here’s the link to the course page for Mindfulness and Wellbeing in Education.

Then, on Wednesday November 27th at 1400 Irish time (1500 CET) and 1700 Irish time (1800 CET) we’ll be holding further info-webinars about our Erasmus+ courses in Dublin and Malta in 2025. These webinars will last for between 30 and 45 minutes and will provide information about our courses, teaching methodology, activity and excursion programme, accommodation options and how to apply for Erasmus+ funding. Sign up for a webinar using this link.

Update about the KA2 project

Last month we proudly announced that we will be taking part in a KA2 cooperation project in partnership with the St Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, North Macedonia, and The University of Zagreb, Croatia. Indeed, the project, which focuses on equipping Veterinary Science professors and administrative staff with the skills to deliver their programme in English, is very much underway. A needs analysis survey has been developed for those taking part and soon they will undergo a written and oral test that will form the basis of the training course they’ll undergo next year. Here’s the project logo!