Category: Sample projects

The aim of this databank is to bring together in one location a series of exchange scenarios that have already been implemented in a wide range of contexts. We hope that these projects will provide ideas and inspiration for new and innovative methods of developing online intercultural exchanges.

www.linguaelive.ca helps any teacher connect their students for peer tandems

jhosek

Through www.linguaelive.ca all teachers can connect their students to practice each other s languages. This free web tool for instructors by instructors helps students make connections abroad. Currrently LinguaeLive’s most popular peer-to-peer tandems are in English-German, English-Japanese, English-Spanish, English-French, Chinese-English, French-Spanish, and German-Spanish. With grassroots effort from all our colleagues, we hope to have every language pairing represented in the future.

RUG-UB Telecollaboration Project

Juan Alba Duran

The RUG-UB Telecollaboration project was set up for 2nd year students of Spanish from the Department of European Languages and Cultures (ETC), University of Groningen (RUG), and students from the Master of Teaching Spanish as a Second Language (MFPELE) from the University of Barcelona (UB). The two participant groups have different main learning goals: one wants to learn Spanish and the other wants to learn how to teach it. Furthermore, this task-based project also seeks to integrate telecollaboration into the curriculum of both programmes. For the language learners, on the one hand, the exchanges aim at improving their communicative skills and their intercultural competences in such a way to prepare them for their stay abroad. The teacher trainees, on the other hand, benefit from the fact that they have real students with whom they put digital tasks in practice as part of their curriculum. Project Team: Joan-Tomàs Pujola Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura Universitat de Barcelona Spain Carolina Fernández European Languages and Cultures Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Netherlands Gerdientje Oggel European Languages and Cultures Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Netherlands Juan Albà European Languages and Cultures Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Netherlands

Perspectives on the Euro(pean) crisis

Fran

This multilateral telecollaboration project which started piloting in October 2013 involves 8 European universities, and has been set up and is being run by the Sharing Perspectives Foundation, a young organization based in the Netherlands which has been set up purely to promote virtual exchange.


‘ Perspectives on the Euro(pean) crisis’ allows universities across Europe to work together in order to present one online curriculum on the Euro(pean crisis. The program gives students the opportunity to collaboratively learn about the political, economic and social challenges within the European Union and the Euro-zone and to conduct research together to gain a better understanding of sensitivities surrounding these challenges.
Moreover, the program stimulates and facilitates the exchange of perspectives on the financial and political crises in the European Union between students and academia across the participating countries.

The exchange is designed to stimulate understanding of viewpoints on issues of the Euro(pean) crisis between participants from different European countries. The aim is to strengthen the common European identity and feeling of European citizenship of the participants by having them discuss the issues that divide them. It is believed this will lead to a stronger sense of empathy and respect for their diversity.


Job application at Sussex & León universities

silviti

This project was designed with the aim of supporting students&#39
employability.


There was a total of 39 students divided into
6 groups of 4/5 students each at Sussex and 25 students at Leon
grouped
in teams of 4
each, representing a commercial company.


Every group in
each country had to design a job advert in their target language for a vacant position, to go to the partner institution . Once the adverts were received by students in both
institutions,
they decided which one they wanted to apply for. They sent their cv and a letter of application in their target language to the other institution and waited to see whether they had been shortlisted for the job they had applied for.

Studens in both institutions met in their groups to decide which candidates they wanted to shortlist and
interview live.
All students participated in
live interviews that took place via video-conferencing either as a candidate (interviewee) or as part of a team of
recruiters (interviewer).

A Spanish-Mauritian cultural exchange

rvurdien

This project commenced at the beginning of March between fifteen university
students
studying English in

my school and eighteen participants from the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of Mauritius. The
Spanish students are preparing for the C1 and C2 Cambridge ESOL examinations, whilst the Mauritian students use English as a medium of learning.
The aim of the study is to perceive how the two cohorts of participants can learn about different cultural factors proper to each nationality through the social network, Elgg. All the students have to
perform their weekly tasks based on various subjects, such as their university education, lifestyle, hobbies, sports, food, festivals and music. The tasks are communicative
in order to encourage
the participants to
exchange views on each other&#39 s posts with a view to foster intercultural competence.
The final task will involve the making of a short video to show their different daily activities and highlights of each
country&#39 s
main attractions.

e-Tándem Español-Inglés

Dory Niño

Este proyecto se llevó a cabo entre estudiantes de la Universidad de Edimburgo en el Reino Unido y la Universidad de Caldas en Colombia y duró 14 semanas, Su propósito principal fue promover el desarrollo de la competencia lingüística en
la lengua meta. Los estudiantes de ambos grupos trabajaron en parejas y el enfoque fue la corrección mutua. Se observó durante el intercambio los siguientes aspectos en los participantes:

  • Lograron tener contacto personal con hablantes nativos de la lengua que están aprendiendo.
  • Asumieron con motivación su rol como expertos de su lengua materna y aprendientes de la lengua meta
  • Tomaron conciencia de que podían aportar y colaborar en la construcción conjunta del conocimiento de la lengua meta.
  • Desarrollaron habilidades para corregir al compañero y así mismo recibir las correcciones.
  • Fueron responsables de su aprendizaje y el de su compañero.
  • Pudieron tener información auténtica sobre la cultura de sus compañeros
  • Desarrollaron habilidades para la comunicación on line.


Teletandem Brasil: Foreign languages for all

tellesjoao

I help you learn my language and you help me learn yours!

Language learning in tandem involves pairs of native or non-native
speakers of different languages working collaboratively to learn each other&#39 s language. Teletandem Brasil matches up Brazilian university students who wish to learn a foreign language, with students in other countries who are learning Portuguese.

With tandem language learning, each partner is a student for one hour, learning and practising a language from the other partner. Then they switch roles and switch languages. We do this through Skype that give us free voice and video communication plus text, so the partners can be anywhere in the world.


  • a sum of opposites, such as sociability and individualization
  • a collaborative joint endeavor with a partner aimed at learning a foreign language
  • a global balanced context within which partners’ relationships can relay roles of power
  • a context within which one can take responsibility of and socialize learning in reciprocal and autonomous ways
  • a context within which one can exercise autonomy and manage one’ s own learning process
  • a context with space for one’ s pleasurable relationship
  • a joint endeavor that consists of regular meetings extended over a specific time period.

eTandem chinois-français (Chinese-French eTandem)

Jue Wang-Szilas

This eTandem Chinese-French course was designed and implemented by Claudia BERGER and Jue WANG-SZILAS. It involves second-year A2-B1Chinese major students from the Chinese Unity of the University of Geneva, Switzerland and Chinese Department of INALCO (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, joined the project in October 2012), France, and the second-year A2-B1 French major students from the French Department of Hubei University, China.


The exchange was initiated in 2009 with a pilot project and was launched on a bigger scale from 2010. As an exchange between two distant languages, the pedagogical scenario has been done very carefully and each step went on based on the analytical result of the previous. The course is now integrated in Chine Web II, the blended Chinese language programme of the Chinese unity of the University of Geneva (created by Claudia BERGER).
The course is credited since 2011, while the &quot normalisation&quot is under procedure in Hubei University.


The objectives of the course are to provide the students an opportunity to practise their target language with native speakers so as to develop their communicative competences and intercultural competence as defined by The Common European Framework of Reference for Language: Learning, teaching, assessment (CEFR), as well as to develop students&#39 learner autonomy through guided learning.