ELIA Newsletter #2

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

Project ELIA transfers an innovative methodology for VET teachers to better manage their relationships with students, to increase student motivation and performance and prevent or manage behaviour problems.

Emotional literacy is the application of emotional intelligence in practice; it helps teachers to recognise, understand and manage their own emotions, and to better understand and deal with other peoples emotions. The projects methodology focuses on the interaction between teachers & students. Focus group reports for first workshops released teachers issues The first analysis of the focus group has been completed. The focus groups and interviews were done with 25 VET teachers and 5 school social workers as well as 30 VET students from Austria and Portugal. All of the teachers claim that one of the main challenges for them is time. They would need much more time to handle all the difficult issues that they are facing with VET students, especially education in terms of behaviour, basic elements of courtesy and motivation. A major issue is also the harsh contact and communication between the students, which is a major cause for concern. According to the teachers, there are several issues students are struggling with during their schooling career: Not well prepared for real life (due to neglect of family or social underprivileged) or overprotection from parents Motivation Bad manners and behaviour as well as disrespect A lack of appreciation of distance and personal boundaries. Students aare not respecting personal space and are constantly pushing at boundaries, and trying to find out where these lay. Harsh communication and interaction amongst the students themselves Crookedness (do you mean dishonesty?)

 Exclusion and Mobbing (you can not change anything as a teacher there this is really difficult to protect a student as a teacher) this is a real challenge; The most important is that the students feel well in order that he/she can learn Gloating Callousness (not caring about others) In addition all teachers agreed that the organizational and bureaucracy issues are a major hindering factor for education (curricula and social education). The fact is, that many teachers have no understanding of emotional literacy and the effect their own feelings have on their teaching. Mostly this is the result of a lack of any training or further education possibilities in this area. In Portugal, additional issues include : Margit., could you please add a few of the key points from Portugal New Subcontractor for Evaluation involved We are delighted to welcome London Universitys Institute of Education as researchers to ELIA. The project was seeking a researcher to undertake evaluation and adaptation work on the projects methodology. We had an overwhelmingly positive response to our tender, with 27 applications, many from prestigious organisations and highly qualified and experienced researchers. Emotional Literacy has certainly struck a chord! In order to optimise this high level of interest, we invited those not selected to take part in the project as volunteers and/or to develop future projects with us through the development of an emotional literacy consortium whose aim would be to : a) to create potential partnerships to expand this area of work (e.g. by making bids for European and other funding) b) to organise and participate in conferences and events c) to become involved in project ELIA, as volunteers or "silent" project partners, (no funding available, a variety of ways of becoming involved) We have had a positive response from 16 of the applicants and are looking forward to establishing new partnerships and collaborations. If you have links

with Vocational Education and Training and would like to participate, please contact us. 2nd consortium Meeting held in Sion, CH The second consortium meeting took place between the 29th of February and the 1st of March 2012, kindly hosted by SOL, the main coordinator of the project. Major topics for this meeting were the outcome of the focus groups with teachers and students as well as the design of the workshops that will be held in spring. Austria, Portugal and Swiss will adapt the respective Emotional Literacy material that will be present to VET teachers and social workers by Richard Majors.

New co-trainer for the Project Dave Read, from lightworks.co.uk, has been appointed as an external co-trainer to the project, working with the ELIA team on the workshops and project handbook. Dave is a trained school teacher, a trainer and therapist and is based in the UK.

First training workshops Portugal and Austria The first teacher training workshop took place in Portugal on 4 & 5th April 2012

Ana Sofia short paragraph on workshop and feedback (photos) Margit short paragraph on workshop and feedback (photos)

The Swiss workshops will take place on 8 & 9th November at the IFFP in Lausanne. Please contact marylise.simomin-dufaux@s-o-l.ch for further information

Coaching : Teachers attending the workshop are being supported in the implementation of the methodology through group and individual coaching sessions. More on this in our forthcoming Autumn Newsletter. For further details, please check out our website : www.elia-project.eu

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.