NEWS from partners

Talking Cultures – integrating culture and language learning

British Council Ukraine and the Institute for Innovative Technologies and the Content of Education invite applications from secondary schools of all types to participate in the international online Talking Cultures project.

Aim:

To promote intercultural dialogue and improve students’ communication skills through mini-projects using Wikispaces as a collaboration tool

Structure and Procedures:

Talking Cultures is a series of mini-projects using an intercultural teacher’s kit containing ten units each one focussing on a specific area of culture. Each unit has a series of tasks that lead to the production of a wiki component. This wiki is shared with a class in another country so that the learners can discover a new culture.

The topics have been selected with a teenage audience in mind and are skills focussed to build up the confidence of the learners.
There are 4 main stages to each topic which may take a few lessons to complete:

1. Preparation – The listening, speaking, reading and writing tasks help students prepare for the mini-project.
2. Mini-project (writing) – Students may have to do a few drafts before uploading onto the wiki. It is best for the projects to be done in pairs or small groups.
3. Share – Students upload and edit the content on the wiki
4. Exchange – Students get acquainted with the content of other country wikis and do a series of tasks, e.g. Read 2 projects and write down an interesting fact, a similarity and a difference. Using the Discussions feature of the wiki, students could write their comments/reflections.

Participating countries:

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine

Target group (project participants):

teachers of English and 13-16 year old students

Requirements:

Participants (teachers and students) should

• have reliable Internet access
• have personal e-mail addresses
• be confident in using MS Office applications and the Internet
• be able to access the wiki on a regular basis
• be prepared to work collaboratively
• be well-organised to meet project timetable and deadlines.

To participate in the selection, fill in the Application Form and send it back to Sasha Shalenko (British Council) at Oleksandr.Shalenko@britishcouncil.org.ua and Oksana Melnyk (IITCE) at ok_melnyk@ukr.net. The deadline for applications is 10 September 2011. The results of the selection will be communicated by 15 September 2011.

Selected participants will be invited to a one-day project training which is to take place on 24 September 2011 in Kyiv.

 

Application Form