POLAND
- THE CULTURE IN ELT INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL, 2002 Our theme was Heritage, our approach intercultural and we met from
July 4th to 14th in Puławy with the aims of exploring:
and as a consequence create an edition of the BC Poland British
Studies Webpages http://elt.britcoun.org.pl
(where you can find the results of our work). Our underlying belief is that
teachers are capable of producing materials of publishable quality if they are
given the confidence and the support, and the pages themselves can be visited
to judge the success of this. The responses of our participants are therefore
important and you can find a selection below. OUR APPROACH
There were a number of specific components to our approach:
the significant non-Polish readership of the webpages considerably
enriching the social life of the school and testing out intercultural approaches.
which the summer school is held into a 'participant', and to
consider the issues of presenting it through English to an international
audience
is the participants who attend and the richness of ideas is the
proof of this philosophy. Our participant-centred approach is perhaps best
revealed in the interviews with local writers and musicians.
various countries and the role of English in allowing as full a
communication of meaning as possible to take place
seen in many items, most of which emphasise a learner-based
approach encouraging 'learning by doing' and reflection on cultural issues. Heritage was understood in its widest sense a living process - not
a collection of dead items as in a traditional museum - rather our approach
tried to mimic those contemporary museums that are living, interactive, and
concerned with the present and the future as much as the past. It was seen as
culturally integrating and multiple, existing at personal, local and
international levels. After all today's world is tomorrow's heritage! DESCRIPTION
There were two stages.
Trips and social activities were an integral part of both phases
in addition to the pleasure they gave. As we are committed to making full use of the resources of the web
we experimented with audio for the first time. There are also a number of
written up interviews making possible our aim of providing living voices and
the sense of reality they provide. Some examples of other items produced were:
CELT PROJECT
The summer school was set up and managed by the BC Poland Culture
in ELT project http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/celt/c_home.htm
and thus reflected its goals: "Our aim is to support the introduction of intercultural
approaches in teaching English - in response to the changing role of English in
the world and the needs of Polish learners - through:
We hope we achieved these during the summer school and reflected
them on the Heritage webpages If you would like to know more about the summer school, visit the
site http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/ or contact: Richard Bolt rbolt@poczta.onet.pl KJO, Uniwersytet Lodzi, 90-613 Lodz, Poland And for information about the wider CELT project of which it is
part: Ewelina Wroblewska, ELT/Education Officer tel: +48(0)22 585 10 82; fax: +48(0)22 585 10 64 The British Council, Al. Jerozolimskie 59, 00-697 Warszawa, Poland ewelina.wroblewska@britishcouncil.pl PARTICIPANT
COMMENTS
Małgorzata Malczyk -
Poland
However, for me the most thrilling was the final product of our
hard 10-day work, that is the WEBPAGES! From the initial chaos and myriads of ideas
there crystallized some wonderful articles, quizzes, interviews or analyses
concerning such a broad and indefinable subject as heritage. And thanks to the
latest developments of technology we can share them with others. All they need
to do is click on the right Internet address... It was a great experience for me. First of all, it really had an
international dimension, since we had trainers from Britain and participants
from Central and Eastern Europe. We all had excellent language practice - it's
worth stressing the word 'language', as we did not only speak English but also
tried to learn some other tongues, as unusual as Lithuanian, Hungarian,
Bulgarian or Slovenian. The school created a wonderful opportunity for
exchanging opinions and teaching methods, but above all it gave us a chance to
learn about each other's cultures, customs and traditions. In Puławy we created
a truly United Europe, where everyone can contribute something of their own and
draw on the experience and heritage of others. Małgorzata Lombarowicz -
Poland
There's one thing more I must write about ... it's the atmosphere.
The atmosphere of work, friendship, sympathy ... to feel it and understand it.
There are still so many people who want to learn about other people: their
lives, culture. For example, Valeria, who wanted to know everything about the
soups we ate in Puławy, or Larisa - there are so many things in our history (or
rather in the history of our countries) that we don't know, although we were a
Union for so many centuries! It was a real pleasure to talk about Polish and
Lithuanian history and traditions. Małgorzata Wojcieszuk -
Poland
The social activities...I really loved the international evening,
the bonfire and the goodbye party. Such activities, as well as group trips are
a great opportunity for sharing views, forming friendships and creating the
spirit of common effort and common enjoyment. Sometimes you can get even more
ideas and authentic teaching feedback from those informal talks than formal
sessions, though I valued the latter very highly. Valeria
Szabo - Hungary
I liked the preparation phase to work on webpages because it was
carefully planned and included a wide range of heritage topics with new
approaches. We were also provided with a lot of practical ideas on how to bring
culture and heritage as a topic into the classroom and had opportunity to
exchange experiences in this area with other participants on the course. While
working on the Heritage webpages we became a great team sharing experiences,
discussing and exchanging ideas.
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