Targeted to Intermediate English (B1+) speakers.Read more
This is the standard requirement for most courses. Participants at this level can participate actively in discussions and manage everyday and professional situations. If they are unsure about their English level, they can test it here or explore our courses facilitated in Basic English.
Language Teachers, Primary Teachers.Read more
The listed audiences are those for whom the course is especially recommended, but courses are not exclusive to them and are open to everyone. In fact, most of our workshops are built around the collective sharing of participants’ experiences and having a variety of profiles enriches the learning process and is highly encouraged!
Description
It’s no mystery that language learning becomes more meaningful when students are given the chance to connect it to real places, stories, and experiences.
Art, biographies, historical sites, and everyday urban spaces can all become powerful tools for communication, creativity, and intercultural learning.
This course explores how language teachers can use cultural environments together with outdoor learning to create more engaging and memorable lessons truly able to bring languages to life.
Through practical and experiential tasks, participants will discover how cities and local heritage can be transformed into authentic language-learning spaces.
Drawing inspiration from art, biographies, and outdoor learning, this professional development course will offer participants an innovative approach to language learning that blends creativity and intercultural learning.
City biography walks, role-plays, pre-scripted dialogues, creative writing, storytelling, and task-based outdoor challenges — all these activities are designed to develop real-life communication skills and learner motivation.
Combining elements of outdoor education, CLIL methodology, and experiential learning, educators will have the chance to design activities that move beyond traditional textbook-based approaches.
Teachers will collaboratively create ready-to-use teaching materials that can be immediately adapted to their own classrooms and school contexts.
Special attention will also be given to how authentic environments can support vocabulary development, speaking skills, intercultural awareness, and learner motivation.
By the end of the course, participants will return home with a rich toolkit of innovative strategies and activities to design motivating, inclusive, and culturally rich language lessons.
They will strengthen their competencies in CLIL, storytelling, differentiation, learner engagement, and intercultural education — empowering them to foster creativity, critical thinking, meaningful communication, and global awareness in their students.
What is included
Learning outcomes
The course will help participants to:
- Use art, storytelling, and local environments as authentic contexts for language learning;
- Design engaging outdoor and experiential language-learning activities;
- Apply elements of CLIL, task-based learning, and creative storytelling in language lessons;
- Develop activities based on biographies, visual culture, and real-world observation;
- Foster students’ communication skills, creativity, and cultural awareness;
- Adapt culture-based activities to different age groups, language levels, and learning needs;
- Create more motivating and student-centered language-learning experiences;
- Design transferable classroom activities connected to participants’ own cities and local contexts.
Tentative schedule
Day 1 – Introduction to the course
- Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
- Icebreaker activities;
- Presentations of the participants’ schools.
Teaching language through art and visual culture
- Exploring culture and visual materials in language teaching;
- Observation and vocabulary-building activities using artworks and images;
- Introduction to visual thinking tools and strategies, and communicative tasks;
- Workshop: designing simple language activities based on visual culture.
Day 2 – Teaching language through biography and storytelling
- Using biographies and storytelling to develop communication skills;
- Creating character timelines for important historical figures;
- Practicing past tense, sequencing, and character profiles for narrative activities;
- Workshop: designing biography-based classroom activities.
Day 3 – Outdoor language learning and experiential education
- Understanding principles of experiential education and outdoor pedagogy;
- Exploring authentic language through places, objects, and local heritage;
- Observation tasks, descriptive language, and note-taking, field tasks;
- Collaborative Workshop: designing a city-based language-learning activity.
Day 4 – CLIL, cross-curricular and creative tasks
- Understanding the CLIL framework and task-based learning principles;
- Combining language, culture, history, and creativity in classroom activities;
- Adapting activities for different age groups and proficiency levels;
- Reflection on inclusion, learner engagement, and assessment strategies.
Day 5 – Student task creation, reflection, and transfer to the classroom
- Reflecting on the week’s activities and key learning points;
- Designing transferable activities for participants’ own school contexts;
- Presentation and peer feedback on lesson ideas;
- Discussion: bring outdoor education and culture-based learning into everyday teaching practice.
Day 6 – Course closure and cultural activities
- Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
- Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
- Excursion and other external cultural activities.
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