ALLPROJECT Eurocall Gandia 09

ALL Project Catering to less widely used languages with blended learning EuroCALL - Gandía 2009 Pedro Cardeñosa, Aisling O'Donovan, Joachim Quandt Centro Navarro de Autoaprendizaje de Idiomas This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 12/09/09

To encourage innovation in the development of language learning and teaching tools Objectives This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

To extend and enhance tools and methodologies for the for less widely used less taught (LWULT) languages in Europe Objectives This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Objectives To provide blended-learning language courses for LWULT as online courses with an offline element. To transfer methodology about blended learning courses to Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Romanian and Turkish teachers. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Project map This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

CNAI - Centro Navarro de Autoaprendizaje de Idiomas
Znanie Association - Sofia, Bulgaria
Çukurova University. Adana,Turkey
EuroEd Foundation, Iasi, Romania
Kindersite Project Ltd. UK
School of Lifelong Education and International Development. Institute of Education. University of London, UK
Vilniaus Gedimino Technikos University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Mykolo Romerio Universitetas

Partner Institutions This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Български език

9-12 million speakers
Indo-European, Slavic family
Cyrillic alphabet

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Limba român ă

28 million speakers
Indo.European, Romance family
Adapted Roman alphabet

Lietuvių kalba

3 million speakers
Indo European, Baltic family

Türkçe

63 million speakers
Uralic-Altaic

The project teams are all people with a passion for the learning and teaching of languages. Projects like ALL are not just professional commitments, they are deeply personal ones. Partner Institutions Joint KickOff Meeting of the ALL and TOOL Projects This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Diverse languages and learning contexts Inflections Cases Genders Lexis Syntax Alphabets Phonetics Challenge This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Challenge Diverse teaching philosophies and backgrounds. Grammar translation, functional notional, Berlitz method, task based learning, teacher-centered learning. Need to unify the terms and definitions in which language learning objectives would be stated across the project in the language syllabi. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Duration: 30 weeks. Total 120 hours 50% online (15 Units) 50% in class Blended Learning This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Blended Learning This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Need to guide the learners through the blended learning field, to help them negotiate the different materials available on the courses Blended Learning This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Orientation units Multilingual video tutorials using Web 2.0 technology. Blended Learning This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Transparent Objectives This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Transparent learning objectives in each activity and in every unit Transparent Objectives This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Student's desktop of the ALL virtual learning environment Virtual folder Access to the online learning materials Communication tools Course organization Virtual Learning Environment This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Online Courses: Orientation Unit Three Modules 15 Units Online Learning Materials This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Multilingual support texts in English French Spanish Italian Multilingual Approach This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

RSS-Feed Integrate learning materials in other websites RSS - Feeds This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Automatic generation of Podcast-Feeds for each unit containing audio files for mobile learning Mobile Learning - Podcasting This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

In some languages a need to develop learning materials from scratch. Need to train editors in the use of online authoring tools, new software, use cameras, to upload images, sound files, video files, use free licenses Challenge This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Online exercises with self-correction and instant feedback Online Materials This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Content with strong cultural component Culture This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Need to exploit the collaborative and communicative possibilities of technology, when neither communicative teaching nor the use of the technology was automatic to the target course users (teachers and students). Collaborative Learning This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Online Correction with pre-defined error categories for each language Innovative Tools This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

1st pilot aimed at editors and course writers areas for improvement in design of activities 2nd pilot aimed at teachers and students trying out the material focused principally on one online module. 3rd pilot Full pilot of the blended learning course comment on the effectiveness of blended learning. Evaluation This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Integrated Evaluation at the end of each unit. Two short questions: What did you like most? What did you like least? Evaluation This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Direct Feedback for course editors Integrated in the course editing tool on the virtual learning environment Evaluation This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Learner’s guide and the other learning tools were very useful.
The course helped them set their own short and long-term learning objectives.
It helped them to find the most suitable learning strategies and methods for their own needs.
They all found studying independently and being able to give their own decisions during the learning process and evaluating their own progress to be highly effective.
The participants found the course especially effective in improving receptive skills (reading and listening) and their writing.
For their overall progress, all participants stated that the course contributed to their learning.

What the learners say This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

“ When there are two or only one student taking the course, there is almost no way to use the online learner to learner communication, which is a loss”
“ A teacher should be technically minded or at least technique friendly”
A teacher should have a PC at home, most of the time students do their homework at home”
“ More interactive exercises for speaking skill”
“ Please improve the peer-to-peer interaction tools. That would be very useful”

Improvements This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.