Visibility of eTwinning Projects Groups July 2019 Newsletter Newsletter 9 | Page 9

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2019 Newsletter
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a foreign language teacher, I have also
experienced this imbalance and pressure. Due to
the size of our classes, limited class time,
demanding curricula and to the heterogeneous
groups we face every year, we are unable to give
all pupils an equal opportunity to participate.
In the 21st Century, the four traditional skills
(reading, writing, speaking and listening) are no
longer enough. According to the National Education
Association (2014), NEA, if today’s pupils and
students want to succeed in the future, they must
also be proficient communicators, creators, critical
thinkers, and collaborators. The 4 additional Cs
(Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking and
Collaboration) emphasise the complexity and
globalisation of today’s world and “need to be fully
integrated into classrooms” (NEA, 2014, p.6). That
is not new as acknowledged in a recent blog post
(Juliani, 2017) or if we have watched Sir Ken
Robinson’s talks on youtube, especially the one on
“Changing School Paradigms” (RSA, 2010), in a
visually striking animated version. It is therefore
urgent, on the one hand, to captivate pupils for
school and not alienate them and, on the other
hand, to prepare them for a new working reality -
for some jobs that do not even exist yet (World
Economic Forum, 2016). To prepare our pupils –
and not deepen the already existing gap – to be
able to pave their path with creativity and
resilience, schools need to be reimagined: learning
spaces, school subjects, pedagogies have to change
to equip pupils with a new set of skills that allows
them to face the challenges of a fast-changing
society such as ours. As the educational researcher
Mitra (2013) points out, “It’s not about making
learning happen; it’s about letting it happen. The
teacher sets the process in motion and then sets
back in awe and watches as learning happens.”
If these research data and our own experience
weren’t enough, eTwinning reports highlight the
positive effects these European projects have both
on teachers and pupils (Kearney, C. and Gras-
Velázquez, À., 2017) for the projects offer precious
prospects for the acquisition of 21 st Century skills,
for interacting and collaborating with peers, using
ICT skills and the English language for real
purposes.
Let’s Create the Biggest Reading Club in
Europe
Being an avid reader myself and aware that reading
has been a neglected skill, this last school year my
students and I joined “Let’s create the biggest
reading club in Europe”, a project founded by
Spanish and Italian eTwinners. Developing a
reading culture by instilling reading habits and
restoring the joy of reading in learners by providing
memorable experiences with literary texts were
some of the goals we pursued.
To achieve those goals, first, I assured my students
they could read the selected titles in any language
and that there wouldn’t be any kind of evaluation –
what mattered was that they would read and
engage in activities that would bring them joy.
Second, and setting expectations, each trimester
my 7 th & 9 th graders, teacher(s) & parents would
read the same title, discuss and engage in varied
activities related to literature. Even though reading
is, for many, a lonely activity, I strongly believe
that it can and should often be social and, as such,
it would be important to provide opportunities for
discussion and interaction (especially among
reluctant readers) as a way to engage them and,
simultaneously, to develop critical thinking,
communication and language skills around the
selected books. Therefore, having in mind the
literary debates all partner schools were planning to
schedule to take place via videoconference, I gave
my word that I would also support students by
taking time off my classes to discuss bits of the
book being read.
In practical and general terms, in the first and
second trimesters, the procedure was basically as
follows:
-In a working document shared in the drive, partner
teachers added book titles that were previously
suggested by students or that teachers considered
interesting and appropriate for learners to read. The
ones that most teachers agreed upon were then
further suggested to our young eTwinners.
-Via google form, participants would vote after
having had some more info on each of the titles.
-The results were published in the twinspace and
soon teachers and students delved into the physical
copies (though some into the digital ones).
From early on, students were stimulated to contact
with their peers which they did introducing
themselves, sending some private messages, too.
In the 1st trimester, when it became clear that the
internet connection at my school wouldn’t allow us
to easily have video conferences, my students
suggested using the chatroom from home and a
total of 3 sessions were scheduled with our
partners: one, for further introductions and
communication/exchanges about
compulsory/academic readings at school; a week
later, in another session, the exchanges were also
general, concerning digital or print versions.
Students justified their preference for the printed
copies, and this chat ended expressing their opinion
9