TRAFIC: Transnational Framework for In-service Courses

The TRAFIC project was set up to promote courses for primary languages teachers within the Comenius framework. It brought together partners from across Europe to develop the quality and effectiveness of such courses and to make their benefits more widely known.

My involvement on behalf of CILT, working in association with language teaching experts, was in the development and evaluation of in-service language and culture training courses in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, looking at the professional, intercultural, linguistic and personal benefits to teachers taking part.

Courses I organised as part of the project

• The St Omer course for primary teachers of French, organised by CILT, from 23 to 28 July 2002
• The Pamplona course for primary teachers of Spanish, organised by the Universidad Publica de Navarra, Gobierno de Navarra, Spanish Embassy Consejeria de Educacion in London and CILT, from 25 May to 7 June 2003
• The Boppard course for primary teachers of German, organised by the Goethe-Institut and CILT, from 18 to 24 October 2003
• In addition, reports and participants' comments from other similar CILT organised Comenius courses, including the Short Course for Teachers of Italian held at the British Institute, Florence, from 19 October to 1 November 2003 were used as part of the evaluation.
• Course reports

Conferences I attended as part of the project:

Wider information exchange on courses and training practices
March 2003 Sevres, France
A meeting of the project partners from France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Belgium and the UK at the mid-point of the project.

The European dimension in the training of primary language teachers
June 2004, El Escorial, Spain
Final dissemination conference
Alison Cutler (CILT) and Reinhold Schulze-Tammena (Goethe-Institut) gave a paper on the development and evaluation of the course 'German for the Primary School' which took place in Boppard, Germany, October 2003.