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Project
form
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PROJECT
TITLE |
Comparing Traditions: an Email Exchange between Italian and
British Students |
|
Short
Summary |
This project aimed at involving 9 year old students in
discovering that Britain has different traditions and ways of
living than Italy. To do this, we chose to set up an
email-exchange between our two 4th grade classes and
British classes. |
| School:
|
5 Circolo Didattico of Latina – two 4th grade classes |
| Country: |
Italy |
| Partner
schools:
|
Staplecross Primary School, Hobbs Hill Primary School (Hemel
Hempstead), Rawinarsh Sandhill Primary School (Rotherham) |
| Classes:
|
4-5th grade classes |
| Project
team: |
Elisabetta Burchietti, Pina Di Viccaro, Neil Watson, Mary Reselo,
Madelaine Clarkson. |
| Project
coordinator:
|
Elisabetta Burchietti |
| Contact
person (name,
surname, e-mail address): |
Elisabetta Burchietti elibur@inwind.it |
| Link
to the
Project:
|
|
| Collaborative
work at school:
|
The geography and social studies teacher collaborated with the
project |
| Technological
tools:
|
internet, email, wordprocessor |
| Socrates
Programme:
|
YES
o
NO
o |
| Distance
Collaboration (among
Partners): |
YES
o
NO o
via email |
| RESOURCES |
Internal
(from your school) |
External
(outside your school) |
Costs |
| Human |
The geography teacher |
|
|
| Facilities
(rooms, labs, etc) |
The computer lab |
|
The telephone costs to connect |
Equipment
(PC,
videorecorder, cameras...) |
Pc, dataprojector, printer |
|
Paper to print, cd-roms to collect the records of the work |
| Funds |
|
|
|
| Other |
|
|
|
|
Objectives |
|
Overall objectives |
To know and understand the difference in culture and traditions
between Italy and Britain
To practice with the language
To learn how to write emails and how to use the internet as a
tool to communicate and
research |
|
Specific
objectives |
To reflect on one’s own culture and traditions
To learn about other kinds of cultures and traditions
To learn how to present one’s own culture and town
To learn how to communicate in English in an informal way
To understand English letters
To create our own email address using an Italian provider
To use email to send and receive letters
To use the internet to find schools
To learn how to create relationships through email |
|
Study
skills |
Vocabulary to describe yourself, your culture and your town
How to write letters
Reading comprehension
Written production (descriptions, replies to letters, feelings…) |
|
Social
skills |
How to introduce yourself and your class/school
How to find out information about others
How to start and close a letter
How to be friends through email |
|
Subjects involved
|
English, history, geography, social studies, maths, Italian, art |
|
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION |
| Duration: |
School
year: 4 months
From: January
To: May |
|
Children worked on the Project |
for __2____ hours a
day
/
a
week
/ a
month |
|
Teachers worked on the Project
|
for ___2___ hours a
day
/
a
week
/ a
month |
|
Work
has been done
|
in
the class / at home
Work has been done in class/at home: both |
|
Short description of how the Project has been
carried out
|
1) How work has been organized either in class and at
home (i.e. individually/in pair/ in small groups/all class)
The first step was to do a brainstorming of how to present
ourselves (what concepts to express, what was important to
communicate) trying to use the vocabulary the students knew and
to learn new vocabulary. We then created an introductory letter
and a description of our class.
Again as a class, we searched the internet for suitable schools
for our project using the website
www.epals.com This was done in the computer lab and children
where participating looking at a dataprojector and telling the
teacher what to do.
When we found the schools, we sent them the introductory message
we had prepared and we also listed our school in the website
database.
Every week two postmaster in turn would go to the lab with the
English teacher to collect the messages, print them and bring
them to the classes. We then organised groups to respond to the
letters sent to the whole class. The groups were chosen by the
teachers trying to put together children with different skills.
At one point a school asked if we could continue in a more
personal way, trying to match a pair of Italian students with a
pair of English students. In this way, friendships were created
and some students started to compose their letters at home –
sometimes bringing the letter on a floppy disk – and to send
them at
school.
2) How the work has been shared among children
In the beginning each group would keep their correspondence with
the same school and would read the letters received to the whole
class. Children were happy – and proud – to share even the
individual letters.
3) How resources have been used/managed
As written in point 1, the two postmaster would collect the
emails from the lab together with the English teacher, print
them and bring them to the classes. Every week we went to the
lab to type the letters and children were sitting at the
computers in pairs. The geography teacher provided children with
the concepts of culture, traditions, aspects of the territory…
helping also in the computer lab when necessary. |
|
USE
OF TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS
Short
description of how technological tools have been
used |
Technological
tools
(videocamera/camera/digital
camera/computer/Internet/scanner/printer) |
see project description |
|
Users
(teachers/children/experts): |
as already pointed out, the users were the two teachers and the
two classes (50 children |
|
Where
(at home/at school):
|
at school and few children typed their letters at home |
How |
see project description |
| WORKPLAN |
| Activity |
Responsable |
Expected
outcome |
When
|
Brainstorming on our culture, town, traditions
Write an introductory letter |
Both teachers |
To understand our culture
To learn new vocabulary in English |
1st week of January 2000 |
Looking for schools on the internet
Send the introductory letter |
EFL teacher |
To find schools
To explain what the project is |
2nd week of January 2000 |
|
Checking for replies |
EFL teacher |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| PROBLEMS/BARRIERS |
Availability of pc lab; organising the whole class in the lab |
| WAYS
TO OVERCOME
PROBLEMS/BARRIERS |
The teacher/s involved needs to present the project to the head
teacher and the teachers in order to have help and support, both
in terms of technical maintenance and lab availability
(sometimes even outside the designated times). Technology can be
a problem sometimes (internet connection is slow, some printers
don’t work…) and teachers need to take it into consideration and
think of a back up plan. When children need to work in the lab,
the presence of at least two teachers is necessary. |
| EVALUATION |
| Evaluation
worksheets of operative
objectives |
|
| Feedback
from students |
This is very important especially to foster awareness in
students. I tape-recorded students’ conversations when working
in groups and discussions we had when I asked questions
regarding the project. |
| Feedback
from parents |
Informal
feedback |
| Feedback
from teachers |
This project was documented with a powerpoint presentation and
explained to all the school teachers at the end. They were
enthusiastic and showed a lot of interest in the way it was
carried out and in the children’s comments. |
| Other |
|
|
OUTCOME
DISSEMINATION |
| Wall-charts
|
|
| Article
on school/local/district
magazine |
Yes |
| Brochure |
|
| Multimedia
products |
Yes |
| Exhibition |
|
| Website |
|
| Seminar/Panel
session |
|
| Other |
|
I allow to
publish the above information on the ECOLE website
(www.ecolenet.nl) : YES
o NO
o
| |
