Wimbledon School of English
It was the first time I took part in an Erasmus course and one of the best ever teacher training courses at the same time. I spent a week in London at Wimbledon School of English studying management. The school itself had a perfect location accessible by all forms of public transport. It had a student-centred atmosphere with all the facilities that a student would need. A wide selection of activities was also available to us to join, which added more to our studies than just following the lessons.
The course was professionally organised, structured and run. It was given by Ms Fiona Dunlop, the principal of Wimbledon School of English, who has been working there for more than 20 years now. It was clear that her expertise is delivering management training in education. She has gained experience in running courses on it all over the world, for example in Spain, Georgia, Chile and Brazil, and passed the knowledge onto us. Her positive and life-long-learning attitude certainly had an impact on me. The activities we were engaged in, the interactive approach and the exchange of ideas with fellow participants gave me a better understanding and more effective ways to use as a leader in my everyday work.
I also had a chance to visit a teachers' course about teaching 21st century classes, where two professional teachers’ cooperative work brushed up my skills through activities involving all skills by the recent theory behind teaching English as a second language. This was certainly something to take from the course and share with my colleagues to raise the level of achievement in our language department.
It was great that we have been using an Edmodo site before, during and after the course, where all the materials are available that we touched upon. I especially found it professional, that all the necessary information about the school, a virtual introduction to the building and staff and useful tips were sent to us beforehand. Also, the information and requests I wrote when filled in the needs analysis were considered and answers were integrated in the lessons.
Overall, all the points mentioned above made my studies really meaningful.
I work as a deputy head of school at Szabó Lőrinc English-Hungarian Bilingual Primary and Secondary School of Pasarét, Budapest and chose the course on management to gain insight in how fellow leaders around the world manage school. I also hoped to exchange ideas as a leader responsible for the language department of our school about how to improve the operation of management and the standards of student performance in English as a second language. Besides all these, it was important to me to get and keep in touch with people working in school management to help one another improve our own schools in the long run.
It was an unforgettable week in Wimbledon! During my course I not only gained valuable knowledge regarding school management, but it also improved my skills in teaching English to 21 century classes. I attended the course from 9 am to 1 pm every day, plus from 2 pm to 5 pm three days a week. Management classes taught me how important it is to be aware of how to manage ourselves first in order to lead our teams successfully, how to apply systems thinking, a holistic approach to analysis that focuses on the way that a system's constituent parts interrelate and how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. Taking a step back was a useful activity during which I learned techniques of raising self-awareness, doing self-observation and self-reflection. A new idea that I would really like to put into practice was "peer partners''. Through this approach I also learnt how I could use my leading potential more effectively while providing my colleagues with self-motivation and accurate feedback in a more comfortable situation.
The most important knowledge I gained about being a teacher of 21st century classes was connected to how and what resources to use in teaching English as a second language. During the week the leaders of our course focused on improving our reading, listening and writing teaching skills. I've learnt and practiced through the different activities we did in and out of class how to choose the right method adjusted to our goals and teach the subskills. I also got new ideas on how to teach pronunciation and grammar. All the useful material, activities and further resources are uploaded to Edmodo for us to use which is not only professional but also invaluable to me.
I got two very useful books as a present from WSE. One contains 700 classroom activities with instant lessons for busy teachers, which I can use and share with my colleagues. The other one, ET pedia Management, co-written by Fiona Dunlop, the principal of WSE, offers 500 ideas to use when managing an English language school. It can be used as a resource book to improve our leading skills.
In as well as outside class I tried to use all the opportunities to observe teaching, to exchange ideas with the course leaders and fellow participants. With many of them we still keep in touch. Besides all these I also learnt how important it is to give sufficient information on the profile and guidelines at school to new students and members of staff, moreover, provide facilities that serve their comfort and make their work and stay more pleasant.
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