Life Long Learning

Underlying all of my work both as a tutor in Adult Education and a trainer in Disability Equality the access to learning in various formats and languages is at the heart of my learning and self development.

The climate of Learning
I have learned that when people are involved in their own learning and feel some ownership of the process, then they learn best. Creating the atmosphere for learning to take place is the key to Life Long Learning. We all need to feel comfortable in our learning environment; more than a physical need there is the need to feel trust and confidentiality to share our learning and recognise our experiences have a value to all.

Challenges of a blind tutor.
My visit to Universita Delle LiberEta, Udine, had two founding outcomes:
I wanted to shadow the lecturers in English Conversation groups with students of different ability levels.

I wanted to be an example of best practice and access to learning demonstrating how a blind person, or disabled people in general, can tutor, facilitating learning and demonstrating the adjustments to teaching practice such as access to information in alternative formats.

Lecture on access to arts

The Social Model of Disability
I wished to demonstrate by my lectures and my own experience how differences are socially structured. This social structure was named by disabled people as The Social Model.
Social structure of difference became the theme of the week using languages and cultures to demonstrate the similarities of the bi lingual issues in Northern Italy and in Wales.