Teacher: Hilde Øen
Spetalen skole, Råde
Length: 21.55 minutes
Download: film / information sheet

It’s December and the 4^th year students at Spetalen elementary school are working on the topic “Christmas in different countries”. They’ve got a partner class at Craughwell National School in Galway in Ireland through eTwinning, and now these two classes are going to exchange Christmas traditions.

eTwinning is a digital portal that was established in the context of EU’s programme for lifelong learning. The purpose of the portal is to encourage and stimulate increased educational cooperation and cultural exchange between schools in Europe.

The English teacher at Spetalen school and the partner teacher in Ireland have cooperated on making a teaching plan where the students make presentations of their respective Christmas traditions for each other by means of various digital tools.

At the eTwinning work space, the Norwegian and Irish students have their own virtual classroom, TwinSpace, which only they can access. On TwinSpace, they can i.a. present their own texts, images, films and Power Point-presentations.

The intention of this teaching plan is to teach the students to use digital tools in language studies. Communicating with their peers in English, by actually conversing with them as well as communicating in writing, is both fun and inspiring. The students understand the usefulness of practicing English pronunciation, putting grammatical structures to use and learning new words when the objective is to understand, as well as to be understood, in an authentic communicative situation.

The Norwegian students start by watching a short film that the Irish students have made for them. After watching the film, the students are divided into three groups. Each group is given an assignment.

The first group is assigned to interview the partner class about Christmas traditions in Ireland via Skype. The students first write down the questions they want to ask, and then practice pronouncing them. It’s both challenging and exciting to interview English-language students: what will the Irish students answer?

The second group is to make a PowerPoint presentation on various Christmas activities at Spetalen school. The students take pictures and write accompanying texts in English.

The third group is assigned to make an illustrated story using the software Photo Story, based on a local folk tale. They draw illustrations to the folk tale and insert English texts.

Finally the whole class sings and performs a Norwegian Christmas song. Here, the teacher directs and films the students’ performance. The video is then sent to Ireland.

Questions to discuss

In what other ways can eTwinning be made use of to stimulate students in their language studies?

Which topics would you yourself want to work and cooperate on through eTwinning?

What kind of experiences do you have using ICT in language teaching?

In what other ways can students at elementary school level work with or meet authentic foreign language situations?

Resources

eTwinning, The community for schools in Europe

Fremmedspråksenteret (The Norwegian Centre for Foreign Languages in Education, Østfold University College): eTwinning

Skype