A Learning Journey with Erasmus+:
Expert Maik Böing Shares His Experience with teachers of President Valdas Adamkus gymnasium
From 25 to 27 August 2026, President Valdas Adamkus Gymnasium had the pleasure of hosting Maik Böing, an experienced German education professional, Studiendirektor, and specialist in bilingual Geography teacher training at the Centre for Practical Teacher Training in Cologne. Over three intensive days, held under the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 mobility programme, Mr Böing shared his extensive international experience and practical expertise directly with our teaching staff.
The visit brought together interactive workshops, hands-on activities, discussions, and reflective sessions, giving our teachers not only new theoretical knowledge but also concrete, classroom-ready tools they can start using right away.
Three Days of Shared Learning
The programme opened with an introduction to language-sensitive subject teaching — practical ways to make lesson content more accessible to every student by embedding vocabulary support and structured language use directly into everyday subjects, not just language classes. This was paired with strategies for promoting speaking skills across all subjects, encouraging students to express themselves confidently regardless of which lesson they are in.
The second day turned toward transcultural education for sustainable development, connecting classroom teaching with our school's ongoing Erasmus+ international exchange work. Teachers explored how to bring intercultural perspectives and sustainability themes into their subjects using real examples from partner countries, followed by sessions on developing students' thinking skills through structured questioning and problem-based tasks that encourage genuine analysis rather than simple memorisation.
The final day was dedicated to putting theory into practice: teachers tried out the new methods themselves, then reflected together on what worked best, exchanged feedback, and began planning how to bring these approaches into their own classrooms and share them more widely across the school.
Why This Matters for Our Teachers — and Our Students
For our teachers, the mobility offered far more than new teaching techniques. It was a chance to step back from daily routine, exchange experience with an international expert, and reflect on their own practice in a supportive, collaborative setting. Teachers return with a broader, more student-centred toolkit — one that makes lessons more interactive, more language-aware, and more attuned to developing students' independent thinking.
The programme's themes also connect directly to the values our gymnasium is building through its accreditation goals. The focus on sustainability and transcultural education for sustainable development reinforces our commitment to environmental sustainability and harmony with nature, giving teachers new ways to weave these themes naturally into subject lessons rather than treating them as a separate topic. The emphasis on reflection, peer exchange, and supportive collaborative learning throughout the three days also speaks to teacher and student well-being, modelling the kind of open, low-pressure, growth-oriented environment we want to cultivate school-wide. And by encouraging genuinely active, participatory lessons — discussion, movement between tasks, hands-on trial of new methods — the training indirectly supports our goal of increasing physical activity and engagement during the school day, moving away from passive, seated learning toward more dynamic classroom experiences.
Looking Ahead
Our teachers are already planning how to bring what they learned into their classrooms this school year — trialling new methods, sharing good practices with colleagues at methodological meetings, and continuing to build the kind of reflective, internationally connected teaching culture that Erasmus+ mobilities like this one help make possible.
We thank Maik Böing for generously sharing his knowledge and experience with our school community, and we look forward to seeing the impact of this collaboration in classrooms across President Valdas Adamkus Gymnasium in the year ahead.
