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Cooperation and Innovation in Teachers' Associations
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Aug 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Given the present situation of education in most European countries with continuous budget cuts, overworked and underpaid teachers and low motivated students who face an uncertain professional future, the role of teachers associations is emerging as institutions that facilitate networking for both professional and personal development. It is at this moment especially important for local associations to develop and modernize our organisations through international cooperation, sharing common interests, experiences and ways to make the most of our scarce resources. That’s what “CITA: Cooperation and Innovation in Teachers’ Associations” is all about. The project aims at expanding the European dimension of regional teachers’ associations providing teachers and the community in general with professional support and interesting and innovative activities that will lead to collaboration for formal, informal and non-formal training and to a greater interest and motivation towards the profession. Webinars, virtual meetings and collaborative work will help us gather information, share decisions and write professional documents for orienting and improving professional action. CITA will focus on the following: validating of informal learning, defining innovative profiles for the teaching profession and teacher training --especially regarding the challenges involved in CLIL teaching, associations sustainability and the implementation of engaging activities for the entire community that facilitate the construction of shared knowledge and the promotion of plurilinguism. The innovation instilled in our institutions thanks to the EC grant will surely be reflected in the daily teaching practice of their members providing a direct impact on the education system. APABAL (Associació de Professors d’Anglès de Balears) will coordinate the project. Our partners IATEFL-HU ( International Association of English Teachers-Hungary) and LAKMA (Lithuanian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) have been chosen among non-profit associations of teachers in Europe whose main objectives are to promote and exchange ideas among teaching professionals, organise activities aimed at improving the quality of the teaching profession and explore new directions in methods and approaches, in order to share beliefs and practices in language and CLIL teaching. Being the three of us associations of English teachers gives us a common ground to work, but the variety of national languages and cultural backgrounds involved, the different fields of expertise of their members and the activities realised in each context will provide a lot to share and learn from one another. Plurilingualism, interculturality and international collaboration will be part of our common organisational strategies for developing knowledge building and inclusive institutions. We intend to achieve our final intellectual output “Guidelines for Running Sustainable Teachers’Associations “ through the development of a series of activities: a survey on the contexts and needs, two short staff training courses (one on CLIL and another one the new FL teacher profile), eight job shadowing opportunities on CLIL and the implementation of a variety of selected common activities within the annual programmes of our associations. The CITA Guidelines will be promoted and disseminated at the final CITA Conference, on the social media and in professional conferences in all the participant countries. Diffusion of the different stages of the project will be done on local professional magazines, teacher training activities and partners’ webpages and social networks. In regards to sustainability, that is ensured by the fact that European cooperation will continue among the partners once the European grant is finished. CITA will give us hints to improve the efficacy of our joint projects, making them long-lasting and cost-efficient. Besides, the activities promoted will be easily maintained as we will design them to be long-term and low cost, looking for sustainability, efficiency and transferability. The waterfall effect brought about by organising some of the project activities will see the cost and efficiency of further events reduced.

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