Strengthening L3-German in Norway: The role of the study-week abroad for in-service teachers’ professional development programmes

Abstract

While the benefits of student FL-teachers’ study abroad programmes are generally well researched, the evidence on the development of in-service (language) teachers during (short term) study abroad programmes is more limited, especially for languages other than English (Gleeson & Tait, 2012, p. 1145). This is partly due to the fact that student exchanges have a much longer tradition than international teacher exchanges or CPD programmes (continuing professional development programmes), and that programmes such as COMENIUS and ERASMUS+ School have a different organisational structure (cf. Hascher & Weyringer, 2010). In our paper, we investigate to what extent our special Study Week concept was successful.

In order to explore the changes in (1) motivation, (2) awareness building and (3) knowledge in the participants, diary data, notes from focus discussions and tutors’ reports were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The data provide information about a network of factors that control motivation and awareness building, thus strengthening the dimension of creating a stimulating learning environment and enabling the growth of a community of learners. We show how a Training-cum-Exposure (TcE) design of the study week’s programme enables this successful development in a daily grid of training, exposure, reflection and social feedback phases.