In the beginning of November, Helene Tind and one
of her students are going to AEC-Net’s yearly conference which
this time is held in New Delhi, India. They have been invited
because the project “Chain Stories” has become nominated to be
among 6 finalists out of 31 projects.
5 years ago
I had an idea for a project which demanded other participants
than Danish students. I just didn’t know how I should get
started and where I should find participants, because I had
never before tried to concern myself with the international
dimension in the classroom. Through Cirius I got in touch with
the organization AEC-Net, Asia European Classroom – Network
(http://aec.asef.org/) and during the fall of 2005, I
participated in its yearly conference where I created contacts
and my project got participants. Thereafter it was just a
question of plunging myself into it along with my students, whom
of course had been involved in what the project was about.
At that
time I taught an eighth grade class in English and together we
participated in the project “Mosaic”, where we together with
peered students from Brunei, China, Hungary, Italy and Malaysia
were going to tell about ourselves, our family, the school, city
and not the least about Denmark.
Many
English lessons went by and also some spare time, but as we
evaluated on the project at the end of the year the students
thought they had learned a lot and that it had been exciting.
They had learned about other cultures and some of them got
friends they corresponded with in English even after the project
had ended.
How the
project developed
During the
last 3 years I have been in charge of my project called “Chain
Stories” (http://www.itiscannizzaro.net/chainstories/home.htm)
but from being my project it has now turned into a common
project prepared with foreign colleagues.
My past
sixth grade has participated in it every year but from being the
whole class which participated it was only those who wished to
participate in the project the last time, and it is possible to
give those students who wants the extra challenge the
possibility of doing so by letting them write and read stories
in English.
During the
first years I have worked with international projects I have
primarily involved the subject English as the communication with
the foreign collaborators is in English, but the other teachers
from my team have also been involved with geography, biology,
art and history.
In that way
it is not only me and my lessons but the whole team which has
been involved in getting the international dimension into the
classroom and thereby the workload was distributed.
What comes
out of it?
Maybe we
didn’t do everything in the English book but in return I had
some students whom became more interested in spelling English
correctly, using the right terms in the right connections and
had become more open regarding communicating in English. All of
a sudden “English” made sense and as one of my students said:
“Somebody has to read it in the other end”. It also reflects on
Facebook where some of my students are now communicating with
the foreign students they also communicated with in the project
and reverse. In that way it is not only while the project last
my students communicate in English, but all of a sudden there
was a more long-termed perspective in it and it is not only
during school time anymore.
Of course
it is not all students who are equally excited, but I have
learned from experience that tasks can be divided into different
severities so that all students can participate depending on
what they are capable of. It is clear to me that the
international dimension has come to stay in my classroom.
There are
so many possibilities of participating in international projects
depending on what you want and is capable of, and the teaching
you give the students becomes attentive in a different way – it
becomes useful, more realistic and all of a sudden it gives
sense when what you learn in the book also is useful.
The future
In the
beginning of November, Helene Tind and one of her students are
going to AEC-Net’s yearly conference which this time is held in
New Delhi, India. They have been invited because the project
“Chain Stories” has become nominated to be among 6 finalists out
of 31 projects. Here they are going to run a presentation of the
project in front of all the other participants and 3 judges and
hopefully they will win.
At the
conference the upcoming projects for next season will also be
presented and Helene Tind will try to find new participants for
new Chain Stories. You can see all the projects on http://aec.asef.org/projects/current_projects.html
and they will start up sometime after the conference in
November, so it is still possible to join them.
