LETIN

Jean Nisbet's Retiral

03/08 Jean Nisbet Retiral (Formal Presentation)

A formal presentation for Jean was held in the Park Hotel, Kilmarnock. Jean retired on 20th March 2008.

(Click on a thumbnail to see the full picture) Geoff

2008 Conference

The next LTI Conference will take place in Kilmarnock, Scotland, from 27 to 31 October 2008.

East Ayrshire is looking forward to welcoming all of you.

A programme for the visit will be sent out to you very soon.

Huelva Conference - October 2007

Hopefully we will all be meeting up soon in Huelva, Spain for the 'annual' conference.

Here is a good link:- http://www.andalucia.com/cities/huelva.htm

Jean Nisbet cannot make it but Muriel, Stuart and Geoff from East Ayrshire will be there.

New Partner Search

Hello LTI friends,
here's a partner search for you to assist with all your strength and will !!!

Download r.P Tristan Bernard Besancon.doc

Thank you for your help,
Monique CUINET
for the DARIC BESANCON FRANCE

Chinese New Year

Modern Foreign Languages Environment - MFLE Guide to Chinese New Year

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/mfle/sharingpractice/chinesenewyear/index.asp

Chinese New Year will be celebrated around the world on Sunday 18 February.
Join in the fun by visiting the MFLE Chinese New Year Special.

Find out how to wish others a Happy New Year in Chinese, or how to make a
traditional lantern and decorate it with calligraphy. There are Chinese New
Year resources, and suggestions for activities which pupils of any age will
enjoy. Pupils can read about the customs and traditions surrounding this
exciting festival.

The Chinese New Year section can provide a link from languages to other
subjects such as citizenship, geography or modern studies. It's a great way
to learn some words in a new language and find out about other cultures.

Spanish Help

Many thanks to our Spanish colleagues for their help with a problem affecting one of our families. The parents planned to retire to Andalucia taking their severely disabled son with them. Maria Angeles was able very quickly to give my colleagues in the Legal Department and in Social Services a lot of information about education and the kind of social service support this young man could expect in Spain.

We are very grateful for this help. Without the LTI link, we would not have known where to start with this matter!

Partner Search - France

Dear friends,

Here's a junior high school looking for a partner.
You can contact them directly.
They will inform me on the issue of their quest...
Amitiés,
Monique

Download partner_search_coll_lumire.doc

We wish all our LTI colleagues a happy and restful holiday!

In the New Year, we will contact you to ask:

• Have you received information about the New Comenius 1? Do you have schools that would be interested in setting up partnerships with other LTI schools? In Scotland, we are interested in setting up partnerships between schools working with pupils in the autistic spectrum. We are also keen to send teachers to countries where they can study vocational education – France? Germany? Eire? Can anyone help?

• Do you want to know more about our literacy conference? It will take place on 21 March here in Kilmarnock. We are just about to send invitations to Barry, Vincent and Joan and to Göran, Thomas and Anders. We are also arranging school visits for these colleagues. Does anyone else wish to be invited?

• Do we have a date for the next conference in Huelva? If the next conference is to be in May or June, I’m afraid Scotland will not be represented: our boss thinks we haven’t made enough progress to justify attending. What do other people think?

Meanwhile Muriel, Stuart, Geoff and Jean hope you are well and happy – and look forward to working with you in 2007!

New Comenius 1

The British Council came to see us in East Ayrshire today and brought news of the New Comenius 1.....

There have been big changes to Comenius School Partnerships: projects now last just 2 years; the projects can focus on pupil or teacher education; projects can involve 2 partners or 3-5 partners; there are also professional development opportunities and opportunities to set up exchanges of children and young people.

2007 is the transition year and there is time to set up projects before the 30 March 2007 deadline.

What is happening in your jurisdiction? We've already had a message from two schools in Maria Angeles's jurisdiction asking for home-to-home exchanges.

You can see the British Comenius 1 regulations in the attached file.

Download bcCOMENIUS.ppt

About home-to-home exchanges: we get a lot of requests in Scotland for home-to-home exchanges and we always have to say no. We know from experience that parents in Scotland don't like home stays: most parents here work - and work long hours - and they don't feel they can look after a visitor very well. We can help organise visits where groups stay in a Travelodge - like an Ibis - near Kilmarnock and we can arrange visits to school for maybe 2 days, so that young visitors can learn Scottish dancing, poetry and songs, can bake Scottish biscuits and visit our languages departments to talk to young Scottish people. This has to be in June or September - at other times our schools are very busy with exams. The rest of the visit to Scotland can involve a day in Glasgow, a day in Edinburgh, a day at Culzean castle near Kilmarnock - there's plenty to do!

If you are interested in setting up a visit, you know we will do our best to help you.

Glasgow Chinese School Visit

Some members of the East Ayrshire International Group visited the Glasgow Chinese School and an associated Arts Centre (Ricefield) on Saturday 25th November 2006. We must thank our hosts, Lin Chau and Fan Li.

The photos can be seen in the album here:-

http://jeannisbetarion.blogs.com/photos/chinese_school_visit/

(Geoff)