1. PRECISE - PROJECT E-COURSES INFORMATICS SPECIAL ENGLISH
Gabriel Saulescu, Romanian Society for Lifelong Learning
eLSE, Bucharest, April 17-18, 2008
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2. BACKGROUND
The international project PRECISE is co-financed by the European Commission within the Lifelong Learning Programme, Leonardo da Vinci programme (AGREEMENT n° 07/0227-L/4013).
The idea of the project started from the findings that the language competence levels of IT-related subjects’ trainers and teachers in vocational education are relatively low in the partnership countries, but also in many others from the similar European regions – South and East. In Hungary according to statistics about 20% of the teachers say about themselves that they speak one foreign language)
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3. BACKGROUND (2)
Following the analysis undertaken within the European project Grundtvig, ITEM : it resulted that there is a definite need for IT English courses, even more so if it is online, as the target group is greatly attracted to the application of IT.
At the same time the analysis concluded that foreign languages did not even appear in the training programs of the teacher training institutes.
Thus the partnership aims at transferring the results and findings of a Leonardo project in which the coordinator developed and tested two evaluating methods to be used in this present project.
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4. BACKGROUND (3)
The two methods are: the portfolio assessment and the electronic assessment method.
The findings of the portfolio method will be incorporated into the present project with slight alterations (in the previous project the portfolio method was applied in German and IT vocation-specific but not IT English, whereas the electronic experiment was based on IT English but at a lower level (A2) and not for teacher training).
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5. OBJECTIVES
The objective of the project is to produce on online course for practicing- or future IT teachers (with a minimum of over A2 English language level input) that will provide the resources and structure in an online environment to enrich, improve and evaluate their English skills.
The project intends to concentrate on those vocation-specific language skills and competences without which they cannot meet the requirements of their professional career.
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6. THE TARGET GROUP
The target group can be divided into two main categories:
the IT teachers and trainers and
those teachers of English who are training to become online tutors.
The first category consists of two main parts:
teachers and trainers already involved in the vocational training career and
those still studying for their first degree.
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7. RESULTS Study and Needs Analysis
The analysis started at the beginning of the project and it addresses: developers
of the online course, developers of further online courses, content developers
for other Moodle-based content, methodology experts.
The methodology that was used consists of: research, own experience from
prior practice and project involvement, involving researchers in the field of Life
Long Learning (LLL), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and
methodology.
The content of the analysis will comprise also recommendations for the
developing team, materials and other resources to be used in the course
material.
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8. RESULTS(2) Online course on IT English for IT teachers and trainers
The target group of the product consists of: trainers and teachers of IT subjects and English teachers planning to teach IT English
The didactical methodology that will be applied consists of: interactivity, multimedia elements, continuous course development and content updating by individual contribution, as for example: uploading own portfolio products, but also self evaluation with the help of separate electronic system
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9. RESULTS(3)
3. Shortened route for online tutors to conduct the IT English Online
course for IT teachers and trainers
Shortened route for online tutors will comprise all video parts but not related exercises, all exercises in connection with specific lexis, all reading passages, some games, all sample portfolios, examples for online collaborative tasks
The didactical methodology to be used will consist of: emphasis on methodology issues like portfolio method, collaborative learning, online self-evaluation
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10. RESULTS(4) 4. Online e-exam software content development
The didactic methods to be used consist of: interactivity, multimedia elements, continuous feedback – Self evaluation with the help of online query.
Closely connected to online course content (the developers create the tasks related to their own content).
Self evaluation with the help of external software will comprise new exercises related to the online course uploaded to the software – see and detailed description in Chapter on Electronic evaluation method accessible from
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11. RESULTS(5)
5. Guide and Toolbox for online course users (2 for the 2 different user groups)
The products will be available in all the languages of the partnership.
For users: Description and Print screen, methodology advice on course application, on collaborative and portfolio elements, technical know-how
The accompanying Users’ Guide (downloadable from project site) gives help for technical and methodology application.
The intangible outcome and the impact hopefully will be an online flexible tool for the IT trainers and teachers to enable them to join the EU way of life with its exciting new potentials and thus to make them find their work more satisfactory. By training the trainers and teachers we can influence their trainees as well to make them accept and appreciate the idea of LLL and CLIL.
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12. EXPECTED IMPACT
The trainers and teachers of IT subjects in the vocational education training
programs will improve their IT-related English skills.
- The teachers of English will enlarge their professional field with ESP
as well as improve their methodology competences in the fields of
online tutoring
self and teacher evaluation
application of digital technologies and e-learning materials and software
new methods of evaluation (portfolio and electronic)
enhancement of collaborative learning in online environment.
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13. ROMANIAN SOCIETY FOR LIFE LONG LEARNING
Address:
no.249, Calea Calarasi Str., bl. 65,
sc. 1, 5th floor, 21th ap.,
Bucharest, 3rd sector,
ROMANIA
Phone/Fax:
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