Case Studies

New handicrafts

vkapourani@action.gr (Varvara Kapourani) — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 16:26:46 +0000

The Craft Café, held every Monday afternoon, welcomes English and French speaking people who were interested in learning and sharing new crafts, in some cases crafts are new to members, and in many cases only known by very senior members in the community.

One member, Nicole, a busy French grandmother who came from a very small village in the Charente loved the opportunity to improve her English, although she had never visited the UK, she also brought knowledge of a wide range of French handicrafts not previously known by English speaking members.

Craft Café / St Angeau

vkapourani@action.gr (Varvara Kapourani) — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 16:17:44 +0000

The Craft Café in St Angeau was set up in response to a request for a weekly activity that would involve both English and French participants with the aim of improving their language abilities, whilst enjoying sharing and learning about new handicrafts.

One of the most interesting afternoons was when an English speaking member brought in her spinning wheel and provided a demonstration on how to work with a variety of materials such as sheep wool, llama wool and local rabbit fur. One of the French speaking participants kept angora rabbits from which she harvested the fur to make into wool from which she knitted hats and scarves to sell at local markets and was delighted to share her expertise and learn about how to use a spinning wheel.

In this case at the beginning of the afternoon none of the ladies could speak the other’s language, but by the end of the afternoon, not only were they communicating, albeit on a basic level, barriers were broken down and other participants were confidently talking amongst themselves in both French and English and enjoying learning new words, expressions and a new handicraft.

Greek Language Café in Corinth Report

ddiamantis@action.gr (Dominic) — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 14:36:47 +0000

Place: Corinth, Dako's Café Koliatsou 73

Date: Monday 9 September 2013

Hours: 18.30-20.30

The 1st meeting took place at Dako's Café in Corinth, a place with friendly and pleasant atmosphere.

A parent taking on Tandem in the family environment during the summer holidays (Sharon Aitken Whitmore Stakeholder Group Morris Association)

ddiamantis@action.gr (Dominic) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:18:39 +0000

I had a request from an English lady to help her fourteen year old son (David) with his French whilst he was over in France for the summer holidays. At the same time I was talking to a French lady at Oliver's school about teaching English. She mentioned that she had a fourteen year old daughter (Margot) who wanted to find English people to talk to. As you know I had French students through SILC (placement agency to place French pupils/students in English families to learn English) coming to stay all summer.

So I decided to invite David and Margot to the house every Wednesday morning throughout the summer. The two of them along with my SILC student (always a girl) and my daughter Megan spent the morning talking with each other. Megan would either be a French speaker when working with David or an English speaker when talking with the French girls.

Innovative Field Research in rural France

ddiamantis@action.gr (Dominic) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:01:49 +0000

Summary – The story in short

Many of the participants in the research have been resident in France for a number of years, and have in the course of that time undertaken French lessons from various sources, without actually achieving much success due to the lack of conversational practice with native speakers. The model for the research had to consider rurality issues and how small diverse communities from across the Poitou Charente could be reached. The model included a workshop with a Craft Café group, part of the Friends of St Angeau Association, with mainly English speakers, uploading the questionnaire onto a face book page of a regional magazine and providing hard copy questionnaires through local social networks including the friendly Tourist Information Office in Mansle

El cafecito español – identifying best practice

vkapourani@action.gr (Varvara Kapourani) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 11:47:07 +0000

Summary – The story in short

On Friday the 12th of October started in Vicenza “El cafecito español”, an activity developed in the framework of the Grundtvig Partnership project MENTORS, based on the guidelines created by the Leonardo project “The Language Café”. A Spanish mother language speaker facilitates informal learning sessions with Italian participants willing to maintain and improve their Spanish language skills

The German Language Café in Southampton

ddiamantis@action.gr (Dominic) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 11:34:35 +0000

Summary – The story in short

On Wednesday 29 February 2012 I visited the well-established German Language café which meets weekly in a café in the centre of Southampton and which was set up as part of the Language Café project (www.languagecafe.eu)

Experiences during the search for participants

vkapourani@action.gr (Varvara Kapourani) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 09:13:22 +0000

Summary – The story in short

We were searching for two kinds of participants:

1) individual people to meet in tandem couples of two different tongues, to practice together each others languages

2) groups of foreigners of different countries in classes to become a ‘language café’ integrating Spanish or Basque speaking people, to speak in Spanish or Basque about common topics

The search was a lot more difficult than expected, because address lists use to be unaccurate and migrants at the moment have urgent survival problems (new restrictions of health assistance).

Metikos for migrants in Greece

ddiamantis@action.gr (Dominic) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 08:17:31 +0000

Summary – The story in short

The workshop organized in Athens gave us the possibility to understand the specific language needs and of migrants originate from 5 different countries that live today in Greece. Learning the needs of the specific target group helped us to enrich and to do better our work.

Language café and cyber language café in Migrant communities in Athens and a Refugee- Asylum Seekers’ NGO – Expectations and Perspectives

vkapourani@action.gr (Varvara Kapourani) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:53:49 +0000

Summary – The story in short

The case study is based on 4 interviews organized by HCC with 4 key-persons who talked to us about 3 different language Greek projects in their organizations or associations and also their opinions about our project’s aims.

1. Arsis project in the Estia Prosfygon, a Home for Asylum Seekers and Refugees, mainly from African and Asian countries, including many monoparental families. (women with children or pregnant)

2. “Aghios Staphanos o Megas” Rumanian Community courses on Greek language run for 3 years hosting the “Odysseas” Program.

3. “The Afghan Community in Athens” organizing Greek lessons for the last 5 years.