The starting point of this project is an eTwinning project on the use of web tools in learning English to minimize the social media addiction, reluctance to learning English and lack of motivation to lessons. Participants organized and shared activities with each others in order to blend technology and language learning and integrate them into education. In these activities the pupils have become familiar with web tools like Kahoot, Socrative, Prezi, Animoto, Duolingo, ClassDojo, Flipped Classroom and so on to a certain extent. They had the oppotunity to see each other's good practices with webinars and videos. However, since the activities carried out on this platform do not meet our expectations enough to solve our common problems we think that sharing good practices in both - real environment and virtual one will make us closer to our objectives.
Aims
Concrete cooperation and communication will be crucial for finding effective solutions for our problems. In this project, our common problems are the students' resistance to learning English, boring lessons and increasing digital addiction. In SWOT analysis, surveys, attitude scales, and case studies, these problems have been clearly revealed. We believe that social media addiction will decrease day by day if the use of educational web tools increase and we will be able to break down the barriers that prevent speaking English fluently.
Work process
The project is planned as six mobilities by the Portugese coordinator school. The other partner schools are from Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania, Romania and Turkey. Four students (aged 14-19) who have different socio-economic status, ethnicity, geographical opportunities and two accompanying teachers will participate on behalf of their own schools in each mobility. These transnational activities will be organized meticulously by each partner for five days. Participants will demonstrate various web tools in learning English by means of colorful workshops, share their good practices and find opportunity to come up with concrete solutions to their problems by making brainstorming.
Expected results
According to 2020 EU Development Plan’s innovation vision and EU educational criterions, digital competency and language proficiency are indispensable for today’s world. Especially new generation was born in a digital era and interactive world. In fact, this situation may include disadvantages as well as advantages. If individuals do not use technology effectively, they may get away from the sociality of the real world. On the other hand, if they don’t have language proficiency they can’t catch up with the world’s interactivity. So, with this project we have both micro and macro objectives to meet these needs. Our main micro goals are to make language learning permanent and fun with digital tools, create a participatory classroom environment, minimize digital addiction by using the internet consciously and effectively, gain self-confidence for using English fluently in class environment. Besides, in long-term we aim to raise individuals who can produce innovation and use the language effectively in daily life and business, raise awareness of world citizenship, create intercultural interaction. It is also expected to gain skills such as collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, selfesteem, entrepreneurship spirit, the understanding of lifelong learning, problem-solving. All these objectives are in harmony with EU Development Plan. So, by means of our project we also aim to conduce to the adaptation of technological atmosphere of the advanced countries.