TIMELESS is going on
TIMELESS IS GOING ON
TIMELESS is an initiative born from the need identified by adult educators from all over Europe to improve foreign language and ICT teaching methods and strategies for working with older learners. It is generally admitted that older learners learn to know, to belong and to become what they could eventually become (personal growth). On the other hand providers of older adult education know that education is a way to connect past, present and future, to increase the number of social roles older learners can play in our societies, to include them in society and in the public sphere.
Dealing with issues such as tangible and intangible cultural heritage, collaborative learning, lifelong learning… the TIMELESS project envisages to support adult educators in developing their own teaching materials, tailored to the interests and motivations of their learners. And what is more, the authors of the project are planning co-operation of older learners as concerns cultural heritage. They will include in the learning materials their older learners communities’ preferred cultural heritage. i.e. the cultural heritage to which communities of older people attribute social and aesthetic value.
Following several months of work, partners prepared a specific, yet rather useful, database. Following up the European Year of Cultural Heritage and its results related to approaches to raise European awareness about European cultural heritage, to improve the accessibility of culture and to enhance the capacity of cultural heritage and education as a tool for older people’s social inclusion.
Divided into two sections, this database of resources has become a kind of matrix of education about cultural heritage, language learning, digitalization and social learning in the field of adult education, for both adult educators and older learners.
The users of the database can explore two different sections, one focused on cultural materials for language and ICT teaching, and the other one on inclusive learning culture.
The first section includes a collection of European good practices and initiatives that use cultural and intercultural materials in foreign language and ICT teaching environments. These resources, target mainly adult and older adult learners while including various categories and types of cultural actions and elements. They are meant to inspire adult educators.
The second one, titled “Developing an inclusive learning culture for older learners”, provides materials and strategies to guide and support adult educators in creating learning environment that aim to improve learners’ feeling of social inclusion.
Finally, the database offers educators resources, ideas, examples of best practices and methods that will help them; to extend their professional competences; to better social inclusion of older learners; to improve older learners’ language, digital and intercultural skills.
If you’d like to know more, visit our website http://eutimeless.info/
