A living city

[Алексей Конобеев]

Dear colleagues, here we present the idea of a school link project that we have tentatively called "A living city". The goals of this project are to teach students to appreciate their own and foreign cultures and hometowns/regions, bring together online students from classes from different countries, to expand communication and cultural boundaries through using ICT, build up vocabulary and writing skills.

The project is open to classes of all ages and level of English. Please read the stages of the project and if you want to take part in it please leave the age and number of students and the name of your region in the comments.

 

Project stages:

STAGE 1: Preparing presentations: Each student writes a letter with a brief introduction of him/herself and a photo attached. The letters are posted in this section of the forum in a topic, dedicated to your class/region.

Group work: students prepare a presentation of their hometown, trying to present a living picture of it. All of these are posted in this section of the forum.

NB Student errors should be corrected only if the students ask for it. If not, they can do error correction at the last stage of the project. Also it is important for the young students not to disclose personal or sensitive information about themselves (such as full address etc).

 

STAGE 2: Working together on the forum the groups compile a list of ten questions they would like to be answered by a foreign partner. The list is finalized from all the students’ suggestions through an online voting.

 

STAGE 3: The information collected is used to find foreign partners for the project. Information on how to find partners will be provided by the end of Stage 2. The worksheets with the ten questions become the workplan for the rest of the project, each of the questions becoming a topic for a presentation to post on the forum. It is important to note, that the topics should be selected according to the students' interests as we are aiming at creating a living picture of your hometown or region as seen by students rather than an encyclopaedia entry.

 

STAGE 4: At the end of the project students make quizzes on the information they provided on their life and their region for their partners to do. Project materials are burnt on CDs for the students to keep as portfolios. Students are evaluated on the basis of the overall work done.

 

Project outcomes:

1. Connection between classes in different regions/countries established.

2. Students will have learnt to use a number of ICT tools during this work. Information and tutorials on these FREE os STANDARD tools will be provided in early September. The tools include: Microsoft Office tools, Audacity, MovieMaker, creating, uploading and embedding podcasts and video, working with forums.

3. Students will have learnt vocabulary needed to talk about themselves, their lives and home regions.

4. Students will have learnt interesting facts about other regions/countries, relevant to their own lives and experiences.

 

Benefits of the project:

1. ICT is lintroduced into the classroom through everyday activities in clear stages.

2. Students are self-motivated by the relevant content of their projects.

3. Most of the materials are generated by students and not by teachers.

4. Language portfolio is created for the group.

5. All the materials produced as the result of the project can be accessed by a wide community of teachers and used as teaching materials to be taken to schools of the regions involved.

6. The project is open to classes of all ages and level of English.

 

Technical equipment needed for the project: a computer, a microphone, a photo camera, access to the internet once a week.

 

Please post your comments, recommendations or inform of your desire to participate in the comments to this post.

[Tatyana211]

We'd like to take part in a school link project. We are 11-14 years old students from Ryazan.

[alljona]

We'd also like to take part in a school link project. My pupils are 12-14 years old, we come from Vladivostok.

[chimera]

We'd also like to take part in a school link project. My pupils are 11-14 years old, we come from Tsimlyansk (Rostov region)

[Olchik]

Children from our school would like to take part in this project with great pleasure They are 11 - 14 years old. We are from Svetlogorsk (Kaliningrad region).

[Алексей Конобеев]

Children from our school would like to take part in this project with great pleasure They are 11 - 14 years old. We are from Svetlogorsk (Kaliningrad region).

It looks like we already have several classes to choose partners from, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. I suggest that we start by choosing the class to link with and stating here directly who you'd be interested in, and then get your pupils to write about themselves. I'd recommend to start a seperate discussion topic for each of the schools, for example, Svetlogorsk school, or Vladivistok school. In that thread you can upload the pupils' letters and the partner class will see who they're talking with. As I am very lucky to have visited both Kaliningrad and Vladivistok, I know how many interesting things the children can tell each other about. Rostov and Ryazan are no less interesting. I'd only recommend tomake sure that the children do NOT include and very personal information about themselves like addresses, and that their parents give permissions to use their childrens' photos for the project, if there are any.

Once the letters of introduction are written, I will try to get each of the partnet classes in touch with a foreign classroom.

[Olchik]

Once the letters of introduction are written, I will try to get each of the partnet classes in touch with a foreign classroom.

Thank you very much for such a great opportunity to connect children not only from our country but also from a foreign one! I find this project successful because it will help our pupils broaden their mind. Children will have a living picture of our country, cities, towns and villages. But if they communicate with pupils from a foreign country, they'll become more motivated in learning English.

We'll start preparing from this Monday.

[Olchik]

Once the letters of introduction are written, I will try to get each of the partnet classes in touch with a foreign classroom.

Thank you very much for such a great opportunity to connect children not only from our country but also from a foreign one! I find this project successful because it will help our pupils broaden their mind. Children will have a living picture of our country, cities, towns and villages. But if they communicate with pupils from a foreign country, they'll become more motivated in learning English.

We'll start preparing from this Monday.

[Laddy]

Project stages:

STAGE 1: Preparing presentations: Each student writes a letter with a brief introduction of him/herself and a photo attached. The letters are posted in this section of the forum in a topic, dedicated to your class/region.

My pupils have prepared their presentations. What should we do now?

[Алексей Конобеев]

My pupils have prepared their presentations. What should we do now?

I suggest that you create a new topic within this section and name it after your city. In the topic you - or the pupils themselves - can post their presentations. This will be a move toward compltetion of Stage One. I'd only make sure that the pupils' presentations do not contain sensitive information like thri addresses.

By the way, I was talking to a number of school teachers in the Republic of Buryatia yesterday, and some of them said they want to participate in this project as well. I really hope that we are going to get very interesting stories and lots of beautiful pictures so that our cities and regions will come alive on the forum.

[Galina Roudnik]

I'd like to know how the project is developing. And I wonder if my students could participate in this activity. I'm sorry that we decided to start too late but maybe we have a chance to join it, don't we?

[elkaJUNE]

I don't quite understand if this project is still working. Is there any opportunity for some of my students to take part in it too?Let us know

[Harry Smith]

I don't quite understand if this project is still working. Is there any opportunity for some of my students to take part in it too?Let us know

 

Neither do I. I want to believe that it still has a good chance to take place. Well, let's be optimistic about it.

[dave]

Is it possible to join project or we are late?

We are from Kansk, Krasnoyarskiy kray. My students are 11-14.

[Алексей Конобеев]

Is it possible to join project or we are late?

We are from Kansk, Krasnoyarskiy kray. My students are 11-14.

Please feel free to choose the class you want to join with and write to them directly in their thread

[КаtyaSergeevna]

Уважаемый Алексей Васильевич!

Объясните мне, пожалуйста, как можно разместить материал о своих учениках и школе в тематическом разделе "Межшкольные проекты", и существует ли связь между учащимися учебных заведений, представленных в этот разделе.

P.S. Пыталась написать вам личное сообщение, но выходит ошибка

KatyaSergeevna, участник V Всероссийского семинара учителей английского языка из Комсомольска-на-Амуре.

[zei68]

Hi! We are 11-13 years old students from village Chekrushevo, Omsk region. We'd like to join the project.

Изменено 8 ноября, 2010 пользователем ilyap22