ANA: Hello, I'm Ana Maria Menezes from Brazil.
JENNIFER: AND I’M JENNIFER VERSCHOOR from Argentina.
ANA: We are here today to talk about a project which was developed by teenage students from Brazil and Argentina.
JENNIFER: We are going to share our experience moderating the project Hello there
ANA: THE IDEA was to have 18 Brazilian students paired up with students from another country to communicate during 4 weeks. I needed a partner, so I sent a message to a group of teachers from Brazil and Argentina and hoped an Argentinian teacher would agree to join me on the project. The World Cup was approaching and I don’t know if you know, but Brazil and Argentina have been football rivals forever so I had the secret dream to demystify some of that rivalry getting Brazilians to interact with Argentinians.
JENNIFER: As soon as I read AM message on FB I immediately plunged into the project. My idea was to show students the importance of integrating connection literacies into their English learning process.
ANA: WHY pair them up and not develop the project as a big group? I had already developed a project where two groups of students joined the same Edmodo group to develop the same tasks. I noticed that although they practiced the language producing and sharing content, the interpersonal relationship among participants was very superficial so there was little social presence.
JENNIFER: My students had already used Edmodo and my original idea was to show them how to use this platform in an engaging and motivating way.
ANA: From previous experience and based on studies about learning communities, I believe that ENGAGEMENT with projects is closely related to building connections with the people involved. According to several authors such as Leh (2001), Garrison (2006) and Menezes (2014), people share more and make connections if they feel socially present.
JENNIFER: During this project we were able to show our students the importance of creating a PLE.
ANA: MY INSPIRATION was “Pen Pal Projects” where two people slowly get to know each other using language as a means of communication. Then I asked myself, how can we develop a similar idea using tools my students are already familiar with?
JENNIFER: THE OBJECTIVE of the project was for students to learn as much as they could about the other student and the place where they live. At the end of 4 weeks, each student would write a report to their teacher expressing what they learned.
ANA: As I had already been using Edmodo with this group of students, I imagined the small groups feature in Edmodo would be a good alternative to get students in pairs. Moreover, we felt it was important to manage the interactions which would take place. As Hockly, Dudeney and Pegrum (2014) point out, exposure to difference needs careful management. Otherwise, cross-cultural interactions can lead to confusion, misunderstandings and the reinforcement of stereotypes and prejudices. In our case, we had students from different countries, from different backgrounds, having different cultures with a historical rivalry in football. We needed to moderate this experience with care.
JENNIFER: Our roles during the project was to have all students join an Edmodo group, divide them into small groups randomly and observe their conversation. The students’ messages were not corrected by the teachers beforehand as the objective was not accuracy but to develop a conversation. Our role as moderators was to facilitate learning through constant interaction between students. We didn’t focus on their language use but on the fact that they were able to communicate with a students their same age in a different country. The communication process was our main objective.
ANA: Jennifer had 25 students and I had 18 students. During one of our many Skype conversations, because of the number of students she had, we decided to form some pairs and some trios to facilitate interaction.JENNIFER: We decided to divide our students according to their nationalities , one Brazilian and two Argentinians, without following any specific criteria.
JENNIFER: As they got started, Ana and I shared a rubrics we developed to give them an idea of what we expected their participation to be like.
ANA: To start the project, we also produced a short introductory video about each class.
( I think we could show one of the videos)JENNIFER I had to ask permission to take pictures of my students. For many of them this was their first experience creating a video for school.
http://projecthellothere.pbworks.com/w/page/78104465/FrontPage (4 mins)
JENNIFER: THE TENSIONS: at various times, students didn’t know what to say, and I told them “talk about yourself, ask them about five things you would like to know about them”. Some of them wanted to develop their conversations in Whatsapp or Facebook but we explained to them that Edmodo was chosen for safety reasons. However, they ended up adding each other on Facebook. Another tension was when their partners were silent during some days. They said “what if he doesn’t answer?” Despite all fears, 18 groups out of 19 managed to develop really interesting conversation. Holiday, connectivity problems, some of them were very shy. When do I have to talk to my partner? After class?
ANA: Students also used the opportunity to discuss about a current worry in May and June, which was the World Cup to be held in Brazil. Here you have an extract of the conversation which took place between two 14-year old girls. (READ)
JENNIFER: We hadn’t planned to meet virtually, but about one week before the ending of the project, I told Ana my students wanted to meet the Brazilian students online. They wanted to see and hear each other. Because our classes were at different times and Ana couldn’t rely on the school wifi connection for a skype conference, we arranged a room for us at Adobe Connect with the help of another educator, Heike Philips. And here, I’d like to thank her for the help. We organized the meeting for a Sunday afternoon where students would be free to join us from their own homes. Out of 42 students only 10 students showed up. A few of them had no webcam or microphone but could hear and participate by using the chat box, others had their webcams but no microphones working. However, the ones who participated seemed to have enjoyed the experience
ANA:
ANA: The six weeks went by very quickly for all of us. I could visually see their sorrow in saying goodbye to their partners. Most of them exchanged their facebook addresses to keep communicating. To me, this is evidence social presence was developed as they wished to keep the connections they had built.
JENNIFER: Like we mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, their final task for the project would be a written report where they would express what they learned about their partners, using text, photos or videos. Correction, Timing, The report are not written in a perfect English.
ANA: The reports were written on a public wiki which could be edited by students and teachers. Our students were able to read each other reports as well as their parents.JENNIFER: Why did we choose a wiki? Collaborative platform, My school wiki with her students, Evo courses, user-friendly, free for educators,
The WIKI IS PUBLIC!!!!!!!
ANA: The writing of the final report was divided in two steps: first students wrote a first draft on the wiki which was marked by the me. I gave them suggestions and signaled a few mistakes I noticed. I didn't correct their writing. Students then, based on my suggestions made the final changes on the wiki. What about with your students, JENNIFER?JENNIFER: …...
JENNIFER: Reports were usually organized in three main paragraphs: the first one described the project, the second was about their partners and where they live and the final one about what they liked and didn’t like about the experience.
ANA: Their final words on the report was about their opinion of the project. I asked them to be as honest as possible pointing out what they didn’t like about the project and suggesting changes for a future experience. I was happily surprised to see that all students had positive opinions about it as you can see from the extracts here. (READ)
JENNIFER:
OUR IMPRESSIONS:
ANA: If I look back at my objective which was to help students use the English they have been learning for quite some time to make connections with a teenager from another country , I believe we've been successful. I was also very happy seeing my students could realize they can actually communicate using English. Of course, we had some tensions, we had to manage their insecurities concerning the language, we had to give them more time to communicate, but all in all, the experience was very positive. Another aspect I observed was that during the initial stage when they exchanged messages with a partner, although the focus was not on language accuracy , it was interesting how my students noticed that the Argentinian students made less mistakes than they did. We, teachers, did not demand perfect English, but students themselves were observing the English used by one another. What about you, Jennifer? What are your impressions?JENNIFER: I realized that if we implement motivating project outside of the classroom, this is an excellent opportunity for our students to continut
