Boosting Spoken English Skills via Interactive and Asynchronous Learning

We observed that our students used to show poor performances in speaking English at the expected level,especially when compared with their listening, reading, and writing skills although they started studying English from early ages.One of the reasons which we agreed for this on was that they could not find any or enough opportunities to produce the target language after they left the classroom and immersed in their first language environment, which made practicing English impossible.Another one was that our students were not placed in English classes according to their levels but their age groups or general academic level. Therefore, they could not proceed at their own pace in the classroom or they might stay silent because of the vocal ones, or they might be much better than the others and they might not improve their English and made no progress. However, they needed to be much better in speaking English before completing their compulsory education since English is the lingua franca, which will open doors for better higher education, better employability conditions and wider social cohesion.That was why we applied for this project to boost the spoken English level of our students using interactive and asynchronous learning way.

We wanted to achieve the students whose spoken English competences boosted interactively and asynchronously by making them complete pair and group work activities with frequent online meetings with their foreign peers from partner schools in a planned but self-paced way. In this way we believed not only were they able to increase the level of their spoken English before completing their upper secondary education but also they were able to improve their digital and soft skills.In addition, we aimed to provide professional development of our foreign language teachers through workshops and trainings on creating their own assessment test of spoken English, interactive and asynchronous pair and group work activities for their distance,blended or hybrid classes. We also targeted to produce an e-guideline that includes our common assessment test of Spoken English, pair and group work implementations and some samples from them and reflections in order to share it with other foreign language teachers.

Our project was woven with local and transnational activities.We exchanged information about the English Language Education System in the partner countries and organizations.We prepared a Common Assessment Test of Spoken English called CATSE to assess the project students at the partner schools.The Irish partner trained the participant teachers on CEFR,how to prepare and conduct an assessment test and how to create and run pair and group work activities.Via workshops,participant teachers created 12 pair work and 12 group work activities that can be run interactively and asynchronously.The students had video conferences every week for at least 15 minutes for 6 months totally(3 months for pair work and 3 months for group work)and met with their peers(in pairs firstly and then the groups of three)online to complete a task(activity) they chose amongst the ones we created.To fulfill the task and obtain the product,they needed to come together and spoke in English.After each period,we discussed and noted the experiences as tips for such implementation.We collected these works in an e-guideline to use and share as a training material with other foreign language teachers through a webinar/seminar that each partner organized at home.

Tangible results are project introduction film, eBrochure, project website, facebook group, eTwinning project,e guideline called ‘Continuous Professional Development on Preparing and Managing Interactive and Asynchronous Pair and Group Work Activities to boost English Spoken Competences’ that includes the partnership and project Info,Common Assessment Test of Spoken English(CATSE), 24 Interactive and Asynchronous Pair and Group Work activities(12 pair+12 group),Tips for an effective management of interactive and asynchronous pair and group work activities, Students’ progress report in spoken English Skills,Students and Teachers’ reflections,Samples from pair and group works’ implementations, certificates of attendance and Europass Mobility Certificates(ANNEX 1) Intangible results are the students with boosted English spoken competences,improved soft skills, better self-confidence and more tolerated towards other people from other countries with enlarged perspectives; the teachers who developed themselves in creating their own assessment test and interactive asynchronous pair/group work activities, teachers with enlarged portfolio for an effective blended and hybrid learning environment and with widened network.