From Comenius to Canterbury

In January this year I applied for Comenius Lifelong Learning funding for a course called Dealing with difficult learners provided by Pilgrims Teacher Training.
In April two of my very dear co-workers and I sat in front of a monitor fingers crossed, and then cheered and hugged happily when the results came in - I got the money. :) When I applied everyone said I would surely get it, not necessarily because of my ability to write or the ideas I had to share. The argument was: "Everyone gets it." But that's not true - the money is limited and people are getting better and better at writing their applications. I didn't find it difficult because I really wanted to go and the course I applied for is something very close to my heart, but I'll confess it took me a couple of days and a number of hours of just thinking through what I should say.
For those who have never applied for a Comenius funding here is a short overview of what I had to do. Other than pure form filling I had to cover 5 themes in writing:

·         PREPARATION – How will I prepare? Do I know the language of the course?

·         AIMS OF THE APPLICANT – What is my job? How does the course match my training needs?

·         IMPACT – on my personal and professional competences, language, intercultural benefits, the institution(s) I work at and my students

·         EUROPEAN ADDED VALUE – Why do I have to leave Croatia in order to gain the knowledge provided by the course? How will my attending the course bring my institution(s) closer to the EU?

·         DISSEMINATION – a plan on how I intend to spread the ideas and notions I learn about to my colleagues (not only at my school, but also at my town and even wider if possible)

The trick to answer all of these questions well is to think through what is it that you want to achieve by going to the course of your choice and how your attendance will benefit the context of your workplace. Bottom line is – You should see yourself as a means to benefit your school, your students and your colleagues, not just think of how well this will look on your resume (even though, it does look very fancy;) ).
So now a task for you.
This is the course I’m going to attend - http://www.pilgrims.co.uk/_files/users/6/8FAF9A459260D8CF4BB0CBC901043EBC.pdf
How could it benefit you? How could it make your life and your students’ lives easier?
I’ll offer my ideas in the next post.
All my love,
D

P.S
As I'm indecisive about where to blog, I'll also be blogging about my Canterbury adventure here:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/dxplorer