1. Learners come with a background

This recipe by Resi Beckers, Mahmoud Chemli, Peter Roth and Gisela Haack from the Aachen, Köln and Köthen University preparation colleges in Germany describes how students can make use of past experiences.

Ingredients:

* Students from many cultural backgrounds
* Questionnaires on their previous learning experiences
* Evaluation and discussion sessions

Preparation:

Using questionnaires, gain an accurate picture of the students’ background, with particular reference to the methods by which they were taught previously. The results can then be compared with the requirements of the country of study.

The results are presented, explained, commented on and evaluated in discussions. This makes it possible to adapt subsequent teaching to potential differences between learning cultures, and to better assess how well students have settled in.

Overall, this gives the impression that things are being taken seriously. It also encourages better performance and creates a better working environment.

A special flavour:

In this scenario, the students were in many instances surprised and relieved (!) to learn that their course-mates were experiencing similar problems.

Would you like to know more?

Click here for a more detailed description of the project!
You can contact the project managers at ruhbeck@t-online.de.