MONTESSORI METHOD IN TEACHING (...)

“Montessori Method in Teaching 2nd Language to Adults” is a project under the funding of the Erasmus Plus Program. This project is developed in the scope of the Key Action2- “Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices”, and is coordinated by Professor Ana Cunha.

The project consists in teaching second language to adults using the Montessori method who emphasizes the active learning through the five senses, not only through the passive listening, vision or reading.

In recent years, sustainable social and economic development, along with intercultural dialogue, have been sought through efforts to ensure universal access to high quality education. In parallel, individual nations, and economic groupings such as the European Union, have been calling for a fundamental transformation of education to develop new competences among their citizens if they are to remain competitive. Educational innovation is a high priority

contributing to key targets on adult learning, up-skilling and modernization of training in the Europe 2020 strategy and the European agenda for adult learning.

The Montessori Method is a rather old but very effective educational method that has been implemented especially for the education of children. It is based on the individual needs of each learner and therefore it can address the learners’ needs in different education fields and training sectors and take into deep consideration the personal attitude, learning time and psychological blocks.

This project it is also aimed at introducing the Montessori Method to the field of language learning as for adults and promoting the acquisition of key competencies and skills throughout the education and training system.

Partners will work in the following ways:

• Development of a manual guidebook for the transfer of the Montessori Method in language learning to adults – it will be primarily addressed to language teachers and will describe analytically how to implement the principles of the Montessori Method to adults over 20.
• Organization of training workshops for language teachers on Montessori method.
• Development of online training for the language teachers in partner countries and then in all over Europe in the methodology.
• The expected impact on the attractiveness and the efficiency of the training course developed with the methodology studied in the research phase will be measured and documented through the analysis of the results obtained by pre- and post-course tests filled by participants, trainers and observers, to assess the effectiveness of the active/participatory method. All results will be organized in tables and all the possible quantitative elaborations will be performed.