Welcome to the UK Dissemination Event Year 2

 “Excellent! Very informative and worthwhile”
“The best training day I’ve attended”
“Very stimulating and refreshing to meet practitioners outside Wales
– new faces new ideas”
“A great opportunity to network – made good contacts”
“Excellent atmosphere”
“Really interesting, good mix of workshops but wanted to attend all of them!”
“It was really useful and offered lots of new ideas/materials which will benefit
ESOL teaching and learning”

These are just some of the comments from over 60 delegates from across the UK who attended the Welcome to the UK year 2 dissemination event on Friday 25th May 2012 in London. A very full day of presentations and workshops focusing on integration began with a short update on the Welcome to the UK Project from Karen Dudley, Project Manager and Director at Learning Unlimited.

This was followed by a fascinating summary from Anna Reisenberger from MigrationWork CIC about the Mixities project: “Making integration work in Europe’s cities”. Anna described some key findings, challenges and good practice in relation to supporting integration on a Europe wide level, much of which can be further explored from this factsheet.

Andrea Quattrin from the UK Border Agency then provided a brief overview of European Integration Funding (EIF) and European Refugee Funding (ERF).

The day continued with three sets of workshops for delegates to choose from:

Applying for funding, with Andrea Quattrin (UK Border Agency).
“Very interesting”
This workshop gave an overview of European funding, eligibility and funding criteria, as well as current funded projects and what makes a good funding application. Read the presentation here.

What can we learn about supporting integration from women in Bangladesh? with Beth Kelly (CEO Learning Unlimited), Pauline Moon (ESOL Consultant) and Roza Ali (project volunteer in Bangladesh).
“Very insightful and gave me a better understanding of my learners”
This workshop provided an opportunity to find out about and discuss what has been found out from the impact assessment undertaken in Bangladesh with women participating on the Preparing for life in the UK workshop programme. You can see a short film about the work in Bangladesh here as well as a participatory video made by the women participants themselves, along with the year 1 Welcome to the UK project impact assessment. The year 2 impact assessment will be available to read from September 2012.

Supporting women learners who are victims of domestic violence, with Severyna Magill (Migrants Women’s Mentoring and Social Inclusion Project Manager, The Arbour).
“Very informative with plenty of follow up advice”
This workshop looked at what domestic violence is and provided an overview of current legislation and support affecting women on spouse visas who are victims of domestic violence. Read the presentation here.

ESOL resources to support integration, with Dot Powell (ESOL Nexus Project Director, British Council) and Melissa Cudmore (Senior Adviser, British Council).
“Full of ideas and useful information”
One of the shared principles underlying integration policy in the European Union is that “Basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history and institutions is indispensable for integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge is essential to successful integration.” This workshop examined the challenges that British Council’s ESOL Nexus project team has faced in developing resources to support the acquisition of this basic knowledge through language learning and showcased some of the resources that have been developed in response – see: http://esol.britishcouncil.org/
Read the presentation here.

Bringing the outside in – approaches to supporting integration, with Karen Dudley (Project Manager and Director at Learning Unlimited) This workshop explored what integration can mean to learners, ways of bringing the outside in to the classroom and creating opportunities for learners to meet and interact with key local agencies and organisations. Read the presentation here.

Teaching basic literacy to ESOL learners taster, with Helen Sunderland (ESOL consultant) and Marina Spiegel (Head of Skills for Life, Morley College).
“Inspiring – I have the book but now feel I want to re-read and apply it even more”
This workshop provided a short introduction to teaching basic literacy to ESOL learners (TBLEL). It considered literacy skills and activities which are of benefit to women who are new arrivals to the UK.

 

If you would like more information on the Welcome to the UK project, please contact Karen Dudley on [email protected] or 020 3700 1161

 

 

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