Mobility 5 "Englishg teaching development through job shadowing". Link School of English. Swieqi, Malta

In July 2019 I attended a 5-day course entitled "English teaching development through job shadowing" offered at Link School of English, a private EFL school established in 1992, offering all aspects of linguistic stays to a wide variety of students (both nationality and agewise) wishing to improve their level of English in the "immersion" setting which provides a country such as Malta, where English is the second official language after Maltese.

My course, rather than a course, was a professional visit which allowed me to shadow and observe Edith Saliba, an EFL teacher with broad experience in English and French teaching both in secondary school, university and private language scchools. Born in Manchester (the UK) and raised in Malta since the age of 4, my mentor's mother tongue is English, although she obviously is a Maletese speaker as well.

My job shadowing experience ran from Monday July 15th to Friday July 19th, during which I was granted the chance to: 

 - To shadow an experienced teacher throughout the planning process of a lesson to explore various ways of adapting course contents and materials

- To improve understanding of language teaching methodology through observation

- To put the observed methodology into practice by means of micro-teaching

- To receive personalised feedback and help from another teacher

- To improve learning performance through self-reflection on personal teaching, and to develop language teaching skills by exploration of classroom materials and teaching options

- To enhance intercultural awareness by forming connections with a colleagues from a different country and sharing teaching experiences in an objective developmental environment

- To gain an insight into Maltese culture and heritage

During my stay I was invited to observe my mentor working with a party of 15 Italian young women from Salerno, all of them students in a professional school in Italy, who came to Malta for a 2-week course on Maltese culture and traditons. That is, instead of a more mainstream language course, I was able to take part in a course which focused more on content rather than in language (even though the course was obviously taught in English).

The class group turned out to be a mixed-ability group, where language mastery levels ranged from A2 to B2.1. The students all knew each other (since they were classmates at their school in Italy) so the initial level of cohesiveness among class participants was high.

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