Minutes of the fifth meeting (Dublin & Tallaght, Eire)

The participants are arriving to Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath). Most of the participants stays in the Maldron Hotel Tallaght in the South Dublin County (Dublin 24 – Tallaght), some Spain participants with their families in the centre of Dublin. The team is complete and the workshop can follow the agenda leaflet (950.16 KiB). Welcome reception started at 18:30 in County Dublin VEC office. After official opening speeches the spirit of Ireland was brought by the dances and music performed by students from local schools. All participants also passed an interesting lecture on basic Irish phrases like e.g.

• Dia duit! ( = Hello!)
• Go raibh maith agat! ( = Thank you!)
• Slán go fóill! ( = Good bye!)

An informal partners discussions then followed with light refreshment.

After breakfast all the participants went to the County Dublin VEC office again. After a short introduction and participants registration Rosemarie McGill (Development Officer, County Dublin VEC) opened the first workshop devoted to Creative Approaches to Communications. The intensive communication was prolonged also over the coffee break.

The followed two partners activities, a presentation by Aaron Borg (Malta) Adult Learning in St Theresa College (3.55 MiB) and a lesson of Portugal for foreigners (462.5 KiB) by Arte Via team, which was finished by a joined singing a song O Que Faz Falta from the time of Portugal revolution.

Then the participants split into their national groups to follow the co-ordinator's instructions and translate the Framework of Enjoyable Learning Approaches (150.53 KiB), one of the project outcomes, into their languages. After a lunch which was comfortably prepared at the place of the workshop agenda the co-ordinators discuss the completing of the common parts of the project final report.

After three o'clock all the participants got the LUAS tram returned tickets from Kevin and enjoyed the journey along the Red line to Abbey Street and walked via the O'Connel bridge across the river Liffey to Trinity College. There we could admire an important piece of the Irish history – the Book of Kells, a beautifully illuminated manuscript Gospel book which is more than 1200 years old. Now it is located in the magnificent Trinity College Library.

Before the dinner everybody has about one hour to explore the centre of Dublin, namely its Grafton Street and its surroundings. A rich dinner followed in the Fallon & Byrne Restaurant at the Exchequer Street. After enjoying the menu (25 KiB) and the discussion participants choose their own way hot to make their acquaintance with Dublin.

The morning session started at 9:00 with a workshop devoted to multiculturalism. The discussions in the multinational groups always moderated by the local organisers who also gave their group summary were concentrated on the communication habits in common life and their variability (and common features) throughout the project countries and their developments in time. That was the time we could really appreciate the opportunity to have also our Turkish partners involved as their positions brought interesting points into the topic.

After a short coffee-break – how sad to realize this – a last session of joined project activities was on the agenda: A Conference: Reflections On Creating Joyful Learning Experiences: Outcomes of the LET’S Do It Grundtvig Project and Launch of Book led by the project coordinator Kevin Harrington. The session was opened by Denise Shannon (Leargas, Ireland) with her informative Overview of European projects (531 KiB). Then Kevin Harrington spoke about Background to LET’s Do It Project (401.88 KiB), Lukáš Richterek (Czech Republic) and Jonathan Borg (Malta) described the development of The Project’s Website (27.15 MiB), Jan Říha (Czech Republic) projected about a twnety-minute video document about previous project meetings, Francis Fabri (Malta, St. Theresa College, co-editor of the project book (17.91 MiB)) presented The Evaluation of the Project and Development of Book (1.86 MiB) and finally Kevin Harrington informed about The Questionnaires and the Framework of Enjoyable Learning Approaches (154.47 KiB), the specific outcomes of the project.

On the way back there was a stop and refreshment in the Mara hotel. In a small conference room we enjoyed two presentations: Krzysztof Bahrynowski (Great Britain) showed a a practical way how to improve maths through encoding and decoding ciphers and Gabriel remind us and importance of learning cultural heritage through a combined projection devoted to all the partners countries.

During the lunch in the President Restaurant we have to say good bye to one of the Maltese groups (MECB), who had to leave earlier. The second management meeting followed, devoted to establishing final details and responsibilities for guide of good practice, framework, book, etc., as stated coordinated by Francis Fabri (Malta, St. Theresa) and to developing of the project’s research paper, including practices from all different partners. (Nichta Stanescu Lab).

After coffee/tea break the last working session concentrating on the learning of languages started with the following presentations:

• Jose M. Calvarro Fernandez and Jose Antonio Sanchez Garcia (Spain): Reading Don Quixote was devoted to the reading of various translations of the famous Spanish novel. All the partners read a first sentence in their own language, which was also documented.
• F. Javier Barragán (Portugal): Cultural Studies and Italian Language teaching showing a language lesson based on an Italian song and its context.
• Marga Taylor, Angelika Grüne and Gisela Pasenow (Germany): Learning to learn illustrating a computer usage in learning activities.

Award ceremony than follows, the Turkish friends as co-organizers prepared one more surprise – a special gift for each of the partners which included an interesting pieces of traditional craft products. After the session also Krzysztof had to leave for another project meeting in Oslo.

Discussions continued during the dinner in the Bulevard Restaurant after which the project team sang the “Happy birthday” to Pepe, our Spanish coordinator. Then there was time to thank the local organizers and to say good bye, see you in Dublin!

In the morning some participants left for their homes, some groups stayed to enjoy the spirit of Ireland for one or more extra days. The weather was very pleasant all the time even for those who are used to the Mediterranean climate which even strengthened the feeling of very kind Irish hospitality!