IC- ENGLISH

The project “IC- ENGLISH- Innovative Platform for Adult Language Education” consists in focusing on the needs of English teachers working with adults with low competences and skills.

Project results are to help these teachers by providing them with appropriate knowledge, resources and tools; however, these resources are to really support teachers at the meta-level of adult education. All resources – developed results- will be available on IC-ENGLISH multimedia platform.

The partners have had noticed the existence of common problems in the field of teaching adults, such as:

• overloaded textbooks with too few exercises activating new material, resulting from, among others, the fact that textbooks are written in series; however, in fact, adults rarely learn the language by continuing education year after year; they usually learn intermittently and many people finish learning at a B1 level;
• teachers’ lack of knowledge about andragogy, learning styles, motivation, diagnosis of needs, recognition of learning convictions, skills in how to translate this into adult classes;
• in teaching people with low competences/skills – grammatical sections in textbooks are a problem: linguistic jargon, explanation of grammatical problems often requires inference/ analytical skills;
• low attendance, learning on and off – language learning requires regularity and adults often work a lot and find it difficult to combine work, family with learning;
• development of natural communication in speech is a challenge – adults often use a studied version of English.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems partners decided to assemble an interdisciplinary transnational team of experts consisting of: teaching methodologists, training techniques specialists, andragogy experts, psychologists, experienced English teachers, as well as media and IT specialists.

The project assumes the use of modern technologies. As part of the project, a pilot cycle will be conducted: the International School of Language Teachers. An international group of English teachers, as part of a joint workshop, will test the developed products, assimilate their practical application, and then use in their daily work with adult learners.