Teaching English as Foreign Language in Palestinian HEIs: An e-Learning Initiative that Bridges Educational and Socio-Political Gaps Erasmus Project

Project Title

Teaching English as Foreign Language in Palestinian HEIs: An e-Learning Initiative that Bridges Educational and Socio-Political Gaps

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Capacity Building in higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics:

Project Summary

Freedom and participation in the academic world are crucial factors that motivated QOU to submit TEFL proposal. Palestine has been restricted inside its borders due to socio-political reasons. The occupation in Pal impacts the movement of people, divides the territory geographically and socio-politically. This has led to inequitable access to quality education for all students. Moreover, academics are struggling to communicate and interact with peers from countries all over the world, due to the language barrier. The exchange of knowledge, skills and culture with others poses as a great challenge for the Palestinian HEIs. These challenges ‘built walls’ prevent from being active and critical members of a growing global community.Teaching English in Pal faces great challenges and difficulties at all levels, in all domains. MoEHE (2015), Rixon (2013), attribute the challenges to several reasons, such as poor and inappropriate content, traditional teaching methodologies, lack of professional educators in TEFL to integrate educational technology, and missing modern learning spaces; the continuing dissatisfaction with the overall performance and proficiency of students in English language (EL) is attributed to the quality of instruction affected by lack of access to technology and unappealing materials and lack of motivation TEFL-ePal aims to develop flexible curricula, with face-to-face and online courses to be accessible to all learners, with no restrictions, reaching all learners including those with special needs and conditions, learners at work & women with restrictions. It aims to implement initiatives that develop learners’ linguistic capacity, skills, and English language excellence, enhance modernization, internationalization and lifelong learning without ignoring the culture. The innovative character of the project serves the capacity-building aspect for Palestinian HEIs and bridges the gaps, addresses inclusion and the proper technological development.

Project Website

http://tefl-epal.ps

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 929151 Eur

Project Coordinator

AL-QUDS OPEN UNIVERSITY & Country: PS

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON
• UNIVERSAL LEARNING SYSTEMS LTD
• CONFIDENCE FOR LEARNING AND TRAININING
• PALESTINE AHLIYA UNIVERSITY
• AL-ISTIQLAL UNIVERSITY
• ANADOLU UNIVERSITY
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET CHEMNITZ