An Invitation to the Technical University in Liberec, Czech Republic

Earlier this year, the Technical University of Liberec in the Czech Republic requested that the Atlantic Centre of Education send a teacher to run a tailored Erasmus+ programme on-site. After intensive planning and collaboration, experienced teacher Dee Maher travelled to Liberec to deliver the course, combining elements of different programmes to optimize learning outcomes.

On her return, Dee shared some insights into a great week:

So it was quite intense in the sense that the days were longer because we fitted a five-day Erasmus course into three days. But they were a lovely, lovely group.

So I arrived in Liberec on Tuesday of last week, I think it was the 12th. I was met by Hannah, a lovely lady who works for the university. She collected me from the bus station in Liberec, brought me to the university, showed me around the campus, gave me a little tour, and showed me the room where I’d be teaching.

There were 11 participants on the course from various fields and departments in the university, nine women, and two men, and they were all really, really lovely.

I taught Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9:00 to 4:30. It was really interesting, a really rewarding experience.

We started with English for professional communication. Then the next day, we worked on presentation skills and managing meetings in international contexts. They did role plays, and we did phrasal verbs and loads of vocabulary, loads of interaction. It was very much a task-based course. I really enjoyed teaching them.

One of the highlights of the week for Dee was the team-building experience. Participants, each with their own expertise gelled exceedingly well into a close-knit unity:

It was a really nice team building course for them as well, because they said that some of them – they just knew each other to say hi to, passing in the corridor. And they really got very close in the few days that they did the course.

She added that each participant regardless of their department benefitted from the programme:

There’s seven faculties at the Technical University of Liberec. Some of them do 3D printing which is something that the university specialises in. Two participants were lecturers or professors in the 3D printing department, others in psychology, and administration. Some of them were researchers, experts in textiles as well as glass making. Glass is a big industry in that city. So it was really interesting.

They came from lots of different departments and they just all felt that they needed to be more professional in their English language. So the EPC part (English for Professional Communication) would have really suited the administration staff because we worked on emails and meetings and things like that. And then for the lecturers, academic presentation skills would have been very useful. We have some great tips and really good course content for lecturing in English, which some of them have to do.

During her visit, Dee took the opportunity to catch up with students she taught back home in Galway over a nice lunch in Prague.