Sharing Methods in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (MiLL)

We are a group of 4 schools, 465 students and 27 language teachers. English will be the project language. Head of our group is Nästegårdsskolan, Kvänum in Sweden. We will share and evaluate methods of language learning in our countries.

Contact persons:

  • Nästegårdsskolan, Kvänum in Sweden
  • Gymnazium Kadaň, Kadaň in The Czech Republic
  • Gümnaasium, Märjamaa in Estonia
  • IES Berenguer Dalmau, Catarroja in Spain

English will be the project language.

Participants:
  • Nästegårdsskolan, Kvänum in Sweden, Märjamaa
  • Gümnaasium, Märjamaa in Estonia
  • IES Berenguer Dalmau, Catarroja in Spain and
  • Gymnazium Kadaň, Kadaň in The Czech Republic.

465 students and 27 language teachers will be involved. The students will be 14-15 years old the first year and 15-16 years the second.

Background:

In Sweden the students need to be more motivated to learn a language whereas in Spain, Estonia and The Czech Republic the students need to be more familiar in using ICT in their language learning. All students need to use English in real life and not only as a classroom language where it is easy to switch to your mother tongue if you don’t know how to express yourself.

Teachers in Estonia, Spain and The Czech Republic need to improve their ICT skills in teaching languages. Teachers in all countries need to get more lesson activities in all four key competences in language teaching (reading, writing, listening and speaking) to make the lessons more varied.

Objectives and results:

STUDENTS’ OBJECTIVES:

  • More motivated and interested in learning foreign languages.
  • Using English in real life, both inside and outside their classroom.
  • More familiar in using ICT in language learning.

CONCRETE RESULTS STUDENTS:

  • Hands on exercises to use in language lessons – made by themselves.

RESULTS STUDENTS:

  • more motivated to learn a foreign language when they see the use of it in real life.
  • feeling more comfortable using English outside the classroom, in real life.
  • having an increased competence in a foreign language
  • familiar with using ICT to improve their language knowledge.

TEACHERS’ OBJECTIVES:

  • Learning to use ICT in language teaching.
  • Get more lesson activities to make language lessons more varied in all four key competences.

CONCRETE RESULTS TEACHERS:

  • Hands on lesson activities to use in language lessons . All these will be found on the project’s webpage.
  • Activities where you need cards, game boards and so on will be printed and handed out to everyone.

RESULT TEACHERS:

  • competent to use ICT in language teaching.
  • having more varied tools in teaching languages to raise the students motivation and language competence.
Longer term benefit:

When teachers get new methods to use, the lessons will be more varied and interesting and the students will be more motivated to learn a language. The webpage with the lesson activities will be used after the project when lessons are planned.
ICT will be a natural part in language lessons and since getting familiar with using ICT it will encourage teachers to explore more ICT tools.

There are exercises prepared by students in other countries about traditions and customs they have and the teachers will continue to use them. It will raise the students’ curiosity to learn more about other countries and traditions in both EU-countries and other countries. This can lead to eTwinning projects with the participating schools and/or schools in other countries than the project partners’ countries to learn more about traditions and customs. As the teachers have learnt about eTwinning it
will be a tool for them to use in the future, both for short-term cooperations and for long-term ones.

They can use it in all foreign languages taught and with schools all over Europe.

Activities and methodology:

The students will prepare exercises for each other under the supervision of teachers to make the quality high. Each country’s students will contribute with two exercises about a special tradition or custom that the other students probably haven’t heard of.
All teachers will prepare lesson activitities 2-3 each for each of the four key competences in language learning – listening, speaking, reading and writing. These will be shared together with the students exercises on our common webpage. In total there will be at least 200 lesson activities and exercises.

During the LTT-activities both students and teachers will share their exercises and activities by having lessons using them. Afterwards students and teachers will discuss the lessons and see if anything needs improving.

There will also be small eTwinning projects between teachers who teach German, French, Spanish, Russian and Swedish/Swedish as a second language.