UKLC’s Erasmus+ Programme

Leaders in Language

UKLC has once again secured European Social Funding via the Erasmus+ programme for the eighth time in row. This programme allows us to run our teacher training project, Leaders in Language.

Between 2011 and 2019 we made it possible for 15 participants to go to France and 220 participants to go to Spain to get the extra teaching experience necessary for them to secure work in the EFL world more easily. These projects all had very successful outcomes and since the 2016 project, fifty-six percent of our participants have gone on to work for UKLC as English language teachers.

The 2019/2020 project offers extra training to fifty newly qualified CELTA/CertTESOL teachers followed by a month-long voluntary placement in a school in Spain.

Dates

The first training week will be held between 27^th January – 1^st February in Chester followed by a 1-month placement from 2^nd February 2020.
The second training week will be held between 27^th April- 2^nd May, also in Chester, followed by a 1-month placement from 3^rd May 2020.

Our partner schools are based in the Valencian, León and Asturias regions.

“I’ve recently returned from sunny Valencia where I had a volunteer placement in a secondary school for 4 weeks. It was a fantastic experience from start to finish. It began in Chester, the home of the organisers, UKLC, where we had a week of intensive training on teaching juniors – this proved invaluable in the month that followed.

I was teaching alongside my mentor Blanca, who was the English teacher for ESO 2 – 4, that is ages 12 to 16. She started me off gently, I was teaching 20 minutes of the hour long classes for the first week and I gradually built up to the whole hour by the third week. You work from a course book as you do in your CELTA training, but I had free rein on how I taught the topic. I was able to put so much of what I learned on my CELTA course into practice – the students particularly liked ‘Back to the Board’.

I lived in a lovely apartment 20 minutes from the beach with 3 other trainee teachers and we shared our experiences, skills (and sometimes laptops) with each other, so it was a very supportive environment to be in. Did I say everything is paid for? Your flights, accommodation, food and transport while you’re there – all you need to do is get yourself to Chester.

So I’d urge any of you doing your CELTA now, or those of you who have recently qualified to grab this opportunity with both hands. I learned so much from being in a real-life teaching situation (especially classroom management – Spanish schools are incredibly noisy) that my confidence has increased tenfold and I feel ready to enter the world of ESL teaching – which I am about to do, as I’ve been given a Teacher/Activity Leader position with UKLC on their Spring School!”

For more information on our Erasmus+ opportunities please visit our website here or contact [email protected]