1. DESCRIPTION OF THE SUCCESS CASE

1.1 Scope of the initiative

 

Although there is no explicit language policy at our school, we are trying to put in practice a language strategy to motivate students in the area of language learning – the establishment of partnerships with other European schools within eTwinning, which is part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme.

 

The first eTwinning project in our school – “Our Favourites” – was undertaken in the school year 2006-2007. It involved a fifth grade class and a school from Poland. In 2007-2008 there were two projects being developed: “We, our school and our town” and “I have a European friend”. The first involved sixth grade students, learning English as a first foreign language in partnership with a Bulgarian School (Sofia); the second engaged seventh grade pupils learning Spanish as a second foreign language in partnership with a Spanish school (Huelva). In the first case, it was the second year those students took on such an initiative – the previous year they undertook the project with the Polish school. At the present moment, there are two projects waiting for approval from the National Support Services – partnerships with Poland and Romania. There are other eight grade teachers (English and Spanish) designing their projects and searching for partners.

 

The ICT Plan at our school integrates, as an aim, the promoting of communication within the educative community and of the use of ICT tools in teaching and learning activities. One of the ICT Team’s intention is to broaden the development of eTwinning projects, i. e., to motivate teachers to engage themselves and their students in such projects. Therefore, this initiative (if we can call it so) is contextualized in a school purpose – learning through ICT tools.

 

This initiative does not target a specific category of pupils – it is aimed for the whole community - initiation and intermediate levels. It can also, in the future, involve groups of teachers sharing their experience and discussing educational issues with other European teachers.

 

As a strategy it is still in its beginnings. In this study case I will mostly refer to and analyse the two eTwinning projects held in the school year 2007-2008 and try to correlate the undertaking of the projects and the school results obtained at the end of the school year.

1.2 Range of languages studied

The targeted languages within the framework of the initiative are the ones imposed by law. In the fifth grade students have to choose their first foreign language (English, French or German – the regulation to add Spanish to the spectrum of languages students can choose at this level is in a period of public consultation at the present moment). In the seventh grade students have to take on a second foreign language (English, French, German or Spanish).

 

 The eTwinning project “We, our school and our town” used English as a way of developing the planned tasks; the project “I have a European friend” used Spanish because it was the second foreign language this class took on.

 

The first project enclosed a multilingual perspective because students, in their contacts (using the eTwinning chat rooms and email messages), exchanged words and expressions used in their mother tongues. One of the tasks consisted on exchanging a list of Portuguese and Bulgarian expressions one can use as survival language.

 

The multilingual perspective for the second eTwinning project was the study of the language itself once it was the third language students were dealing with (Portuguese, English and Spanish). Even though the other seventh grade students were not involved in an eTwinning project, they shared this multilingual dimension (Portuguese, English and French).

1.3 Learning outcomes

With the dissemination of eTwinning projects it is expected to reach, in the long-term, the following learning outcomes:

• Increased intercultural awareness;
• Improvement of communicative skills;
• Achievement of better school results related to writing skills in a foreign language;
• Increase of motivation in language learning;
• Improvement of the European dimension;
• Understanding of different world views;

• Use of ICT tools in foreign language learning and in multicultural communication.

1.4 Practical realisation

This language initiative is taken more within the official curriculum. The e-Twinning projects previously mentioned were and will be put in practice in a subject called “Área de Projecto” (Project Work), which integrates the students’ plan of studies. It occurs once a week and has the time span of ninety minutes. The life span of the projects was/is aimed for the whole year but future projects can have the duration that future partners desire.

 

Due to education regulation laws, in the sixth grade class there are two teachers who give support to students; in the seventh one there is only one teacher. Luckily, there was a language teacher in class in both cases. This situation is also valid for the present school year.

 

This kind of project demands the introduction of a novel learning environment once its realisation depends on ICT tools – the use of computers, the use of internet, the use of various software. The students and teachers’ tasks within the projects require either the usage of the portable personal computers or the occupation of the ICT classroom. Both scenarios are possible in Escola D. Afonso III.

 

There is no explicit language teaching in this activity. Students just have to use the foreign language as a means of carrying out the tasks they and their teachers have designed. Students work in groups and this methodology, allied to the teachers’ support, eases the solution of problems related to language matters. Therefore, it is expected that students, by accomplishing a goal connected to a relatively practical situation – the exchange of information, the communication with other students of other countries -, by performing an implicit learning of the language and  by using knowledge they have learnt in a formal way, acquire better language competence, even though it might only be at a beginners level.

 

 Students are asked to do intermediate assessments concerning the completion of the planned tasks and their self involvement/participation. At the end of the project, they will be asked to assess their gains in terms of language learning and transferable skills. Once teachers pay closer attention to their pupils, by spending more time with them in a language “implicit learning” environment, they can collect more information to assess their evolution concerning language competences.

 

 If projects cannot be put to practice within the curriculum, whatever the reasons might be, they can find practical realisation as extracurricular activities which can integrate the teachers’ timetable and function as a “language club”.

 

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