Eglė PETRONIENĖ, Vytautas Magnus University Education Adademy, Lithuania
Dr. Eglė Petronienė has been in teacher education for more than 25 years. Currently, she is teaching at Vytautas Magnus University Education Academy and enjoys working with student-teachers of English. Having been in charge of the Lithuanian Association of English Language Teachers for more than ten years, she is well familiar with the routine of teacher’s work and has been involved in teacher training by organizing professional development events and coordinating projects both for teachers and students. What she values in her work most is being part of a friendly and highly professional community of English teachers who work and learn together by sharing their experience, knowledge, ideas and discoveries.
PLENARY TALK
Learning to care through English
We generally learn a language to use it as an effective tool for gaining and sharing information. Being communicative by nature, a language is also educational. When we are learning a language, we not only learn about the world, but also find ways of understanding it. In this talk, I will share my five year’s experience of organizing multicultural camps in Lithuania for teenage students from different countries. The project is initiated and supported by the US Embassy in Lithuania and aims at promoting students’ multicultural awareness, further their understanding of diversity and develop their English skills. Various educational and social activities done in a non-formal environment of the camp can be transferred to a classroom to strengthen students’ motivation, help them grow as caring and open-minded persons, and thus help teachers implement values education at school.