Our project has been launched. We are all happy to be starting a new experience. My students, because they feel this exchange will add some authentic practice of the language they've been learning for many years now; but, above all, because they will be using it to communicate with other students to share ideas, opinions, tiny episodes in their lives in different countries and cultures.
I'm also very happy, because it's thanks to the advent of the Internet that we can now afford to reach other people anywhere in the world and allow our students to learn and communicate, straight from and through their mouths and fingers.
Barbara Sawhill, a teacher of Spanish at the Cooper International Learning Center in the Oberlin College, Ohio, and myself got in contact some two weeks ago. Knowing we both share a passion for teaching and communicating, we decided to organize a project to allow our students to have a hands-on experience using synchronous and asynchronous tools the computer offers for free. We talked about our students ages, levels and interests, and planned to share a cyberspace to get them together.
Barbara’s students have a class blog at http://languages.oberlin.edu/hisp305/spring06/ ,where all the links to their personal pages have provided access to my students´ interest to find out more. As learners of Spanish, they are also willing to learn about latinamerican lifestyles and culture, and to share their experiences living in an English-speaking country whose culture differs in many aspects from ours in Argentina.
The project is now going through its first stage: students both ends are getting to know each other. Mine, through visiting the American students’ personal blogs and leaving their comments. The students in Ohio, by reading our class blog, where they are already contributing with comments as answers to the Argentinian introductory postings . We are also enjoying comments written by teachers from different corners of the world. And we all feel very enthusiastic at seeing that a common project through the computer is feasible, despite geographical distances.
Students from both countries have been matched, one to one, and their next task will be working in pairs, interacting asynchronously, to get to know each other better, find interests in common, and learn more about each other’s culture and language.
Argentinian students have been assigned another task: they’ll have to record an answer to “Aspects of your own culture which you are proud of”, and publish it here so that they give the students in Ohio more information about our country.
The students in the States will be asked to circulate an ipod with a microphone in class to provide their contribution and get the ball rolling…
What’s next?
We are all seeing this project grow with enthusiasm. Our ultimate aim, taskwise, will be giving all students the chance to get together on Skype for a voice encounter. Knowing the impact and the appeal voice has in communicative environments, we guess and hope it will be a most enlightening experience.
A most friendly hug,
Rita
