Code Yourself Into English Erasmus Project

Project Title

Code Yourself Into English

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The rationale behind our project is the need to take English out of textbooks and present it as a means of communication and medium of technology. When we studied the needs of the schools, teachers and students thoroughly, we identified a problem in terms of production in English. Even though pupils can learn all the grammar rules and vocabulary properly, most of them seem to fail when it comes to productivity in English. Even though they are high achievers in multiple choice English tests, they feel intimidated while writing or speaking in the target language.We consider coding a solution to the problem of encouraging students to use English both for studying and practising English and using it as a means of communication. Moreover, coding, which is an inevitable skill in the twenty-first century, helps to foster creativity and logical thinking. While working on coding, students develop planning skills and learn to organise their thoughts. They become confident problem solvers. Despite the conjecture which drives people to consume everything including knowledge and information, students may become creators instead of consumers. As it is possible to access all kinds of information without any effort thanks to the Internet and technology, students tend to consume knowledge without internalising and long-term learning does not occur. Moreover, students cannot apply their knowledge into their daily life.
We have three objectives which are to increase the use and integration of ICT tools within the English classes, to develop students’ and teachers’ digital skills for a better integration into a digitalised society, and to create opportunities for developing and applying innovative teaching methods for English taught as a foreign language for a group of 150 students and 50 teachers of English for a period of 24 months. There will be six short term exchanges of pupils in each partner country and one short term joint staff training activity.
Expected products of the project are reports from surveys on students’ needs and expectations, vocabulary flash cards, an arcade game for revision of countable and uncountable nouns, an animation on everyday expressions in English, a step-by-step guide on using code.org and scratch, presentations on future jobs, presentations on using web tools, posters and fliers promoting coding, a set of evaluation tools, a coding dictionary, videos with the situations from the usual situations from life and functions about health /catering and tourism /sport…., Comic strips focusing on specific grammatical / syntactical forms, project website where all activities and products will be published, twinspace on the eTwinning platform where all collaborations will be monitored and products will be published, a mobile application of the project.
As we are planning to include various trainings for teachers, we hope to achieve a long-lasting impact on the quality of teaching in the participating schools. By actively involving in the training sessions and workshops, teachers will acquire the basic digital skills and will be encouraged to use innovative ways of teaching later in their classrooms. They will also be familiar with good practices in other European schools and will be more willing to put them into practice. The teaching materials will also be available for future classroom use and we expect teachers to benefit from them directly by using them and create their own materials by the inspiration they get. The students will also get familiar with the concept of coding and be encouraged to pursue further use of it. Intercultural learning will be another impact on the students beside development of digital competences
and social competences. These impacts will not be limited to the participating institutions. The results will be disseminated to a wide public on the local and national level through open days, education fairs, teachers’ meetings. The results will be known on the European level thanks to other EU funded projects of the participating schools.

Project Website

https://codeyourselfintoenglish.wordpress.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 197790 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vahit Tuna Anadolu Lisesi & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Srednja skola Bedekovcina
• COLEGIUL ECONOMIC “PINTEA VITEAZUL”
• FIFTH LYCEUM OF IRAKLION CRETE GREECE
• IES ALONSO DE COVARRUBIAS
• I.I.S. “Di Poppa-Rozzi”