I would like to focus on a teaching project called "Project USA – Finding out about historical, natural and current topics". It was conceived by the English teacher A. Düpmeier for his eight – graders at the "von – Zumbusch Hauptschule" in Herzebrock – Clarholz. In my opinion, his project is particularly interesting because it was really broad in scope: It lasted the whole school year 1999 / 2000. The teacher subdivided his project in three different items. At first, every pupil had to get information about two of the fifty states of the USA. They had free choice how they got the necessary information, they only obligated to post their results on the homepage of their school. In the second part, the students had to prepare an interview and a quiz about the topics "school" and "free time" for students of a partner school in New Jersey. They were in contact with them via email-communication. With the help of the responses the pupils had to create a fictive interview. At the end of the project, the pupils focused on a particular aspect of the information they got and created in group work a website where they placed their work results.
The teacher inteended to train his students` New Media skills in three different ways:
Firstly, the computer was used by the students as a tool helping them to summarize their group work results. Additionally, they used the internet for publishing and exchanging information. Secondly, the computer was used as a medium for communication. The email – exchange with the American students confronted the German pupils with an authentic speaking situation helping them to improve their speaking skills. Thirdly, the students had to use the computer and the internet for researching authentic information and working with multimedia encyclopedias.
To my mind, such a teaching project can be an immense success because the students can improve their New Media skills over a longer period (a whole school year!) in many different ways (as you can see above).
But what do you think? Can you imagine to run such a large-scaled project in your English class?
June 9, 2009 at 6:40 am |
Hi!
Nice project you found! It includes many useful ways of using new media in foreign language classes. What I like the most is the fact that the project is designed for a whole year. This way the students get the chance to go more into detail then normally. Since the whole school year runs under the topic USA it’s absolutely suitable to plan everything under one project.
annika
June 9, 2009 at 6:41 am |
Hi!
I really liked our description of the teaching project. It is a great advantage for pupils if they have the chance to write with people from another culture and country and to get to know more about their way of living.
This project took a long time but was a good idea because the pupils can prepare and learn the target language better.
I think it is a very hard job for a teacher to prepare such a teaching project, but the results make it worth the work.