The idea was to get familiar with our linguistic diversity and juxtapose our six language systems but we went beyond that and decided to train a team of students from each partner school in an innovative language learning methodology known as Suggestopedia to peer-teach our languages to our partners. This activity was meant not only to help familiarize our students with the other languages of the partner schools but also to promote the entrepreneurial potential of language teaching.
To this end, the English teacher from the Greek partner school – who is a certified teacher trainer in Suggestopedia – prepared the following course materials and trained peer teachers via Skype. Unfortunately, only four of the six project partners' languages were taught at the meeting because of lack of time to prepare the materials in Turkish and Czech both of which the trainer was unfamiliar with.
The teacher Training
To present the teaching methodology to the peer teachers, its background, its means and results, the trainer used the following presentation:
Our teaching methodology .ppt
To demonstrate the methodology, she used a demo video of her teaching German to her Greek students before the meeting:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F-9c8fPJR6TRGU0t2IjZuvkk_kynWqvt
To help them plan their teaching, she gave them the following list of materials
TEACHING MATERIALS .docx
and step-by -step instructions:
Instructions for teachers.docx
The teaching MATERIALS
For each course we produced and reproduced a Student's coursebook - which is essentially a libretto, a play translated in the reader's first language, or - in our case - in English, which is the common language for communication. This is an illustrated dialogue in natural communication settings which is accompanied with grammar notes. The dialogue is supposed to be recited by the students following the suggestions of the teacher-reciters. Here are the coursebooks for the four language courses that were taught at the meeting in Athens:
_the Greek LOGOS (1).docx for the Greek course
for the Italian course Bella ed antica.pdf
for the Spanish courseUn Viaje.pdf
for the German coursedie endlose Reise.pdf
The peer teachers used their Teacher's Book - a version of the coursebook in which there are Stop posts for elaboration of grammar, structures and vocabulary. Here are the Teacher's Books for the four language courses.
_the Greek LOGOS .pdf
_Bella ed antica - teacher's.pdf
Un Viaje- Teacher's.pdf
die endlose Reise - Teacher's .pdf
Apart from the coursebook in its Student's and Teacher's version, each course was aided by Posters with the basic grammatical and syntactical structures as well as expressions and vocabulary families (eg. the days of the week) The Posters for each course are here:
posters for the Greek course-20190530T103730Z-001.zip
posters for the Italian course-20190530T104131Z-001.zip
posters for the German course-20190530T103331Z-001.zip
Each course is taught with the help of a set of HANDOUTS with all the necessary grammar and vocabulary units given to the learners right from the start of the lesson. Here are also the lyrics of the didactic and authentic songs used as well as the questionnaire for the job interview carried out at the end of the course for evaluation.
HANDOUTS-20190530T112430Z-001.zip German course set
Italian course setHANDOUTS-20190530T111348Z-001.zip
HANDOUTS-20190530T105142Z-001.zip Spanish course set
HANDOUTS-20190530T104033Z-001.zip Greek course set
To aid the class follow the job interviews we also used the following sets of slides:
das Job Interview.pptx
intervista.ppt
interview in Spanish.pptx
ΣΥΝΕΝΤΕΥΞΗ.pptx
Click here to view all the materials used to train the students from the Spanish, the German, the Italian and the Greek school to peer teach their languages during the meeting: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1moJGElQWz9bMqfLAw4eTz-ERxL_x1dUs
Our teaching methodology
Suggestopedia is an innovative teaching-learning methodology most commonly known as the Lozanov method applied in foreign language teaching. It is based on the principles of language acquisition rather than language learning even when it is addressed to adult learners. Its main difference from all other methodologies is that the teaching/learning process is directed in such a way that it desuggests the idea of conventional formal learning. Therefore, teacher and learners act as peers in a non-educational communicative context.
Each course involves a cycle of 4 stages:
the Introduction of each new unit
The teacher acts as a tourist who uses the foreign language to get the learners involved in everyday communication aided by paralanguage, didactic songs and dances, props, toys, photos, handouts and posters.
the Recital
The teacher acts as an artist who uses classical and preclassical music in the background to recite the dialogue in the coursebook with all the new lexical and grammatical units and expressions used in the previous stage. The dialogue is like a libretto in a play and is translated in the learner's mother tongue.The learners follow and keep notes.
the Elaboration
The teacher acts now as a play director who helps the learners acting as actors and actresses to recite the dialogue themselves as if they were rehearsing their parts. At moments, the teacher becomes a 'suggestor' for the 'actors' to act out without reading. There is also free communication inspired by the ideas in the dialogue which helps the teacher to elaborate on the pronounciation, the grammar and the vocabulary being taught. At this stage, the learners are encouraged to ask each other personal questions and communicate in the foreign language aided by the grammar in the Posters and the teacher's modelling the structures.
the Production
This is the stage of evaluation of what has been understood and is about to be learnt. The teacher acts like a facilitator for the learners to play didactic games, sing and dance to didactic songs and role play interviews with questions from the dialogue.
Here are some instances of the peer-teaching mini courses: