December 2016

Dear Teachers, Lecturers, Instructors, Educationalists, and  Examiners,

We are glad to inform you about the latest events connected with  the FAB – Formative Assessment Benchmarking for Foreign Language Learning & Teaching–  project. It’s hard to believe, but we are now in the middle of the project as we have just finished  the first round of international peer observations and have entered a new phase of the project.

In October, between the 23rd and 28th, we were very pleased to  host at the University of Warsaw a group of six academic teachers representing our partner HE Institutions from Hungary, Lithuania, and Finland. They came to participate in the first series of international foreign language classes observations. The scale of the endeavor was quite a challenge to us, as our partners visited,  in total, 71 classes in eight different foreign languages, run by 23 teachers.

The visitors had a chance to get acquainted with the system of foreign language provision at the University of Warsaw, observe techniques applied in teaching and learning, with special attention to how a formative approach was used, as well as how students were encouraged to participate actively in learning the language. Everything the visitors noticed while observing the classes, will be collected and will provide us with useful material in designing a practical guidebook for students and teachers. The guidebook should be available on our website as soon as the project is finished.

We are proud that our partners have noticed and appreciated our teachers’ skills, their students’ active  engagement and participation, as well as a friendly atmosphere created by teachers in the classrooms, which undoubtedly supports learning.

Detailed reports from international observations which took place in Warsaw are available here. Please read them.

Another series of international observations was held in Turku (Finland) from 28th of November until 2nd of December. Like previously, TUAS hosted 6 visitors  including 2 representatives from every partner university, providing a very friendly and hospitable care and program during the stay. We have learned from our team who returned from Turku that the Finnish teachers of foreign languages  have reached a level of  excellence in providing feedback to their students. An account of our recent visit to the Finnish university, together with reports and pictures, will soon be published on our website.

We  look forward to participating in the next round of lesson observations which are to begin in spring 2017: in Kaunas in March and in Pecs in April.

We are now in the middle of preparation for the conference that was announced in the previous newsletter. Detailed information will soon be published. Today we would like to remind you of the conference date: September 19th, 2017.

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Wishing you FABulous teaching ideas as well as wonderful winter holidays.

FAB team, University of Warsaw