English teaching project

This year I was lucky enough to be given a Comenius grant to attend a course at Maidstone (Kent, UK) for teachers of English at primary level.

I was one of a group of 30 students from different countries in Europe, namely Slovenia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, France and Spain, with the intention of learning new methods of teaching English to our pupils. What better way than to play language games, recite action songs and poems, in pairs or in groups. It was a hands-on experience and great fun.

Diana Hicks dealt with teaching English to very young learners and Graham Workman, with a good sense of humour, kept us hard at work at learning how to deal with upper primary school children. We had the opportunity to visit an English primary school and talk to English teachers and students. We also visited Rochester, Rye, Hastings and London.

It was also a memorable experience to see some World Cup matches in an English pub, especially since there were students from Germany, Portugal, France and Italy - all hoping to win the magic cup. It was also a great lesson in sportsmanship.

I hope more teachers from Malta will be able to avail themselves of Comenius grants to participate in international study programmes. In this way we can broaden our understanding of Europe and Europeans. The grants are received from the European Commission through the EUPU Socrates NA.