AQUATT and AMC at Firenze

Newsletter 2 - The Startup Meeting: Firenze WAS/EAS Conference: STOP PRESS

M.Eleftheriou Tue 8 Jul 2008

The first meeting took place in Dublin on 16-17th November 2005, and was attended by Mrs M.Eleftheriou (AMC), Dr P Chritstofilogiannis (AQUARK), Ms L Fraga (CETMAR), Mme C. Desmarais, Mme C. Goulletquert (LYCEE), Ms. E.McVeigh (AQUATT), Dr W. O'Connell (BERGEN), and Professor R.Trebaziatowski(SZCZECIN).

Startup meetings of pilot projects are particularly important, even when partners know one another, and have previously worked together. The nature of the pilot project implies innovation, and aspects of innovative processes sometime require a lot of spelling out. In PESCALEX, it is the CLIL methodology (Content and Language Integrated Learning) that is not familiar to the content specialists in the partnerships.

The meeting therefore began with a presentation on the PESCALEX Concept, demonstrating the relevance of the PESCALEX language project to the aquaculture curriculum.

The CLIL methodology is well suited to the narrowly- focused subject area of Fish Diseases, with its simple language structures, the high level of knowledge of complex terminology, and the need for fast recognition of disease symptoms. There is a good chance of success in this project, because it is based on Beginner and Basic Level online Language lessons which have already been tried and tested in English, Greek, Portuguese and Swedish. It will be our task to adapt and translate them into French, Spanish, Norwegian and Polish.

The PESCALEX website has already been purchased, but for the meantime, information about PESCALEX will be given on the AQUALEX website and also on the AQUATNET website.

The Fish Diseases Glossary will also form a major part of PESCALEX, with the terms and definitions being taken from the AQUALEX database. The first draft is already available, totalling 1472 items, which we hope to finalise by the end of the year so that translation into Polish can begin as soon as possible.

The new module concerns Fish Diseases, and at the Startup meeting it was decided that the partner responsible Dr Christofilogiannis (AQUARK) should focus on 6 main species relevant to European industry. We are to decide on these species later. We had been sent the courses " Basic Techniques in Fish Haematology", "Fish Health Management\" and "Cost Effective Feeding of Fish". The latter, even though it is the longest module, should have new material on turbot which BERGEN will produce.

We spent a long time discussing how to plan the final Teacher Training Workshop (target audience, venue, timing, suitability of methodology for teacher training). Venue:Lycee de la Mer et du Littoral, in Bourcefranc le Chapus in France, despite its rather remote location. Time for the workshop-June 2007. It was decided to delay the choice of target audience, as CLIL method is still very innovative, and much may depend on the willingness of teachers and/or students to act as guinea pigs in this pilot project.

PESCALEX at Firenze May 2006

AQUATT and AMC had a stall at the May 2006 joint meeting of the European Aquaculture Society and the World Aquaculture Society, which attracted over 6000 visitors. In addition, the PESCALEX project was presented by Mrs Eleftheriou at a parallel session on education and training. The presentation was entitled "Bridging the Gap" and was very well received by the international audience.

STOP PRESS

www.pescalex.org now online, with availability of secure internal communication network.

Illness of Coordinator forces change in place and date of second Progress Meeting, now to be held in Crete in August 2006.

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