Starting in November 2008, disabled students at MKU began weekly English lessons to prepare them for the June 2009 training in Ankara.  In March 2009, disabled students at YYU and Ege University also began English lessons. TIU thanks its English teachers: Ayşen Değer at Izmir Ege University,  Nurcan Kose, Ali Ümit Armağan and Abdülkadir Kurt at Hatay Mustafa Kemal University and Zeki Ediş and Mehmet Demir at Van Yuzuncu Yil University. 

During this time, many of the students have shared ideas and grown in confidence.  One group in particular has developed a strong identity; when they had to decide who would participate in the Ankara training, they developed a fully democratic process to choose their representatives. 

These lessons aimed to develop speaking and listening, participation in group activities and expression of ideas;  The aim is fluency and confidence, using limited resources: minimum grammar, lots of guessing (and mistakes), and fun!

Methods used are described on AccessEnglish

Techniques that were especially relevant:  'Spontaneous Expression' (to get people talking, and forget fear of mistakes),  Paraphrasing (to realise how much you can say with limited English), and Role play (to get future participants to try using some of  the language they will need during the EU training) 

Many of these ideas can be used for preparing anyone (disabled or not) for any first international meeting.