Teacher Training in Ireland
Quotes from Italy
“We really enjoyed our stay in historical Kells and the evocative green sights of county Meath and we did learn a lot from our teacher training at St. Ciaran's Community School. All the staff we met there were always welcoming and helpful. It was also interesting to spend some school days with you and learn more about the Irish education system. Your learner-centred approach and learn-by-doing teaching philosophy and methodology brought excellent results, Brianan. Your students' presentation on using IT devices to set up and advertise a fictitious company and relating their experiences while looking for distributors was very effective, to the point and with a sharp sense of humour (which might always come in handy to overcome cultural differences during an international business transaction). We particularly appreciated the idea of filming the students' job interviews. Some of your kids seemed really into it, determined to get the job they were applying for and show the whole world - or at least the other “Polities”- that they were ready for business! (Polities, great name for an international firm, by the way.)
Last but not least, visiting local firms, in particular the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, was a brilliant idea, providing us with lots of useful hints and insight into how to set up a real successful company...worldwide!
We look forward to seeing you and your students in our future exchanges and transnational meetings in Poland, Ireland and Italy again. Both our students and our colleagues are more and more willing and eager to cooperate with you and your students, as well as with the students and teachers from Poland, on this amazing Erasmus project”.
Quotes from Poland
"MaÅ‚gorzata’s school focuses on economics, hospitality and tourism. As the students of hospitality had already been engaged in EU projects, MaÅ‚gorzata wanted a project that would extend students’ professional skills in economics and their ability to operate in the multicultural environment. Because she believes that “nowadays it is a must to have cultural awareness when doing business”. Therefore when constructing the framework for the project, her school was looking for partners that would represent different backgrounds, present different experiences and those that are willing to learn from others and teach others at the same time. The project would involve international cooperation which would be focused on languages, culture and student travel. MaÅ‚gorzata said “You inspired me to new ways of teaching Business English to my students. Definitely I am going to use more IT in my work, not only when working with students but also when managing the project. It turns out that not only the students but also the teachers are to benefit greatly from the project. Also, the opportunity to meet in the international group makes you pay attention to different styles of cooperation, different approaches, but most of all it enables you to look at certain matters from a different perspective. It seems that these assumptions have already been achieved, at least by the teachers. As early as at the teacher training in Kells we got the insight into the Irish system of education which from our perspective seems more advanced and student-oriented than the Polish one. Not only were we trained in terms of IT but also we had a chance to observe the functioning of the foreign school, teacher-student relations and on top of that the outcomes of such cooperation. The more we saw, the more willing were we to copy good practices of St. Ciaran’s Community School."
