Training event in Lithuania
Vilnius Adult Education Centre is implementing Erasmus+ programme KA2. This is a Strategic Partnerships for adult education and it involves four countries Spain, Italy, Latvia, and Lithuania. The title of the project is „Information and Educational Materials for Refugees and Immigrants“. The main objective of the project is to exchange good practices and create practical material to achieve successful integration of the newcomers. The coordinating institution is CEPA "Abril" Spain. Partner institutions are "CPIA 1 BRESCIA" Italy, Macibu centrs "EVA-93" Latvia, "Vilnius Adult Education Centre" Lithuania. The target groups of the project are the Syrian refugees, immigrants, and national students.Three Training Events are foreseen in the course of the project’s implementation.
The First Training event was organized by Vilnius Adult Education Centre (VAEC), Lithuania on 20-24 March, 2017. Each partner institution was represented by four members.
The goal of the trainings was to introduce the methods used by VAEC teachers in working with immigrants and national students. As well as to demonstrate the tools, software and techniques applied in creating the information materials for the immigrants and refugees.
An educational tour to Lukishkiu Prison Education Centre was organized to show how immigrants in custody are being taught. Italian and Spanish partners have their teachers working in prisons as well, thus the Lithuanian practice was interesting to explore.
(http://www.kaldep.lt/lt/ltik/pradzia-ltik/naujienos/erasmus-projekto-welcome-u2qe.html)
The director of another Adult Education Centre “Bitė” was invited to explain the details of the examination of the state language skills category in Lithuania. This examination is required while immigrants apply for the Lithuanian citizenship or they are planning to become the executives of the state and municipality institutions, establishments and organizations, civil servants, teacher and pilots.
Participants also visited "Lithuanians' House" a school for children who come from abroad but have Lithuanian origin, and are descendants of Lithuanian exiles, or children whose parents live outside Lithuania.
During the trainings guests job-shadowed the Lithuanian teacher working with the class of immigrants learning the Lithuanian language. The teacher demonstrated an interactive method used in teaching the migrants the state language. Furthermore, guests were informed about cultural and social integration of the immigrants in VAEC. The participants learned about the methods of integrating informal and non-formal techniques in the teaching-learning process.
Finally, the teachers of VAEC shared their approach to enhancing creativity and experiential learning skills. That is, the students are actively involved in different short-term, long-term, state, and international projects, they organize social events at school and are constantly encouraged to use modern technologies.
The training event was full of activities and it is intended to apply new and interesting methods in each partner institutions. All the information about the activities will also be posted on the blogs of each countries. The next trainings are going to be held in Italy in May and finish in Latvia in October.
