Teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to Food and Agricultural Engineering students requires language instructors to design a varied range of activities aimed at helping students familiarise themselves with their subject matter areas in English and develop their professional (Ibrahim, 2010) and critical thinking skills (Šliogerienė, 2005). This study was carried out in the context of the VELCOME project (Virtual Exchange for Learning and Competence Development in EMI Classroom), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. The main activities of this part of the project were carried out online by our Food and Agricultural Engineering students, who were following a compulsory English for Professional and Academic Communication course. The main goal was to offer the participants opportunities to use their knowledge and expertise to move towards a more sustainable world while fostering their civic and entrepreneurial competences. To do this, they were required to design and develop a fictitious start-up, in English through asynchronous and synchronous telecollaboration (Belz, 2003) to practice these competences. In the asynchronous stage the students designed Padlet posters. After this stage, the participants took part in a synchronous virtual meeting via Zoom, where each group was given the opportunity to present their start-ups to the members of a different team. This study explores students’ preliminary learning results, the development of civic and entrepreneurial competences through virtual exchanges as well as the difficulties and benefits of carrying out an experiment involving participants from different groups with different profiles and interests.

1. Using telecollaboration to design a start-up
to develop civic and entrepreneurship
competences
The 24-Hour MATSDA International Language Learning Conference 2021
Developing L2 Materials and Designing Language Learning to Promote Creativity and Criticality
Lourdes Pomposo-Yanes (UPM)
Antonio Martínez-Sáez (UPM)
Begoña Clavel-Arroitia (UV)
Barry Pennock-Speck (UV)

2. Content
- Introduction
- Context
- Objectives
- Methodology
- Results
- Conclusions

3. Introduction: Blended Learning
The so-called Blended
Learning approach: a flexible
approach that combines
technology and classroom
instruction.
It facilitates the teaching and
learning of competences.
Teachers nowadays have
moved from pure e-learning
contexts to blended-learning
approaches
Blended learning:
•Bañados (2006)
•de Gregorio-Godeo (2005)
•Sharma & Barrett (2007)
•Aguado & Arranz (2005)
•Zaragoza-Ninet & Clavel-Arroitia
(2008, 2010)

4. Introduction: Telecollaboration
Telecollaboration “involves the
application of global computer
networks to foreign (and second)
language learning and teaching in
institutionalized settings under the
guidance of a language cultural expert
(i.e., a teacher) for the purposes of
foreign language learning and the
development of intercultural
competence” (Belz, 2003: 2).

5. Context
Project: Velcome Project (RTI2018-094601-B-100). Virtual Exchange for
Learning and Competence Development in EMI Classrooms. Project granted
by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities
Type of students: Undergraduate students of English for Specific Purposes,
ESP (Agronomic and food engineering at the Technical University of Madrid)
Online environment: telecollaboration.
Activities included in the University programme and students’ evaluation.

6. Objectives
RO4:
Determine the impact that different ICT tools (synchronous &
asynchronous) have on the collaborative interaction and competence
development of those students in VE contexts. Development of civic
and entrepreneurship competences.

7. Methodology
� Google form-Questionnaire (pre-post task) (46 answers)
� Padlet online tool to include the start-up contents
� Recordings of video conferences to share their experiences
and start-ups.

8. Activities (1)
Teamwork (create the start-up)
- 12 groups (4-5 students)
- To design/create a start-up aimed at improving other people’s
lives, the planet, human rights or any other civic issues (students
from different degrees with different interests)
- They organize their online meetings.
- Each student has a role in the start-up
- Insert all the visual contents in the Padlet Online Poster.

9. Padlet project including
videos/text/photos/audio clips

10. Activities (2)
- Online video meetings (Zoom) to share their start-ups,
their objectives and speak about the project in general.
- The meetings are recorded for teacher’s observation
and future research.
- No synchronous participation of teachers.
- Two groups in the meeting (1-2/ 3-4/...) that will have the
first contact.
- They all have to participate.

12. Activities (3)
- Fill the post task Google form questionnaire. (45 answers)

13. Results
POST-QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS
- Very positive results in terms of:
Motivation
Awareness
Creativity
- Positive results regarding the improvement of their civic
competence;
- More moderate results regarding the improvement of their
entrepreneurship competence.

14. Results (2)
ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMPETENCE
After working on the project, most of the students considered
that …
- they were better able to identify new opportunities, which
would help them do something new in life;
- they were better able to develop, create productive ideas,
enthuse others and mobilize them;
- they were able to take the initiative, take on challenges,
plan and organize, make decisions more than before;
- they were able to work better in teams;

15. Results (3)
CIVIC COMPETENCE
After working on the project, most of the students
considered that …
- they were more aware of the need for respect, civic
values and tolerance in a work environment.
- they had a better democratic and communicative
attitude to life.
- they had a more critical and civic understanding of the
world.

16. Some comments and ideas shared by our
students after working on their projects
“I don't think I am more aware, I have always been
more or less this aware about the importance for
me of having my own business.”

17. Comments
“I have acquired new skills related with working in group. Meeting new
people through online videos and develop a product which could be so
profit for new production ways has been a good investment on time.”
“It has been useful because it made us to talk eachother no matter if we
met previously or not. We were student from different branch and we learn
from eachother. We also discovered developing countries problem related
to that less known areas.”

18. Difficulties
- Introducing the project/tools/assessment;
- Students did not know each other;
- Organizing the groups;
- Agreeing on the time of their online meetings;
- Participants’ different levels of English.

19. Very positive features
- Students were able to design and talk about their own
start-ups;
- They took into account and became more aware of the
Sustainable Development Goals;
- They became familiar with the poster presentation
format;
- They were able to work telecollaboratively while
pursuing a common goal;
- They were given the opportunity to interact with
students who had other interests (different
specialization fields).

20. Academic year 2021-2022
- Watching and analysing the recordings of our
students’ online meetings;
- Welcoming students from different institutions and
countries (different mother tongues);
- Conducting a more comprehensive study based on
students’ needs and perceptions.

21. References
Aguado, D., & Arranz, V. (2005). Desarrollo de competencias mediante blended learning: un análisis
descriptivo. Revista Iberoamericana De Educación, 37(3), 1-12.
Bañados, E. (2006). A Blended-learning Pedagogical Model for Teaching and Learning EFL
Successfully Through an Online Interactive Multimedia Environment. CALICO Journal, 23(3),
533–550.
Belz, J. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in
telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), pp. 68–117.
de Gregorio-Godeo, E.D. (2005). Blended learning as a resource for integrating self-access and
traditional face-to-face tuition in EFL tertiary education. Recent research developments in
learning technologies. Badajoz: Formatex.
Sharma, P. & B. Barret (2007). Blended Learning. Using technology in and beyond the language
classroom. Oxford: Macmillan.
Zaragoza-Ninet , Mª G. & B. Clavel-Arroitia (2008). ICT implementation in English Language and
English Dialectology. GRETA. Revista para Profesores de Inglés 16: 78‐84.
Zaragoza-Ninet, Mª G. & B. Clavel-Arroitia (2010). La enseñanza del inglés a través de una
metodología blended‐learning: Cómo mejorar el método tradicional. Lenguaje y Textos 31:
25‐34.

22. Thank you very much for your attention!
Any questions?