The project "Virtual English", like most innovative experiences, especially
when dealing with technology, has come across several problems, some of
which have been "solved" thanks to the perseverance and dedication of the
teachers who have participated in the project. The following problems should
be taken into consideration when implementing "Virtual English" or a similar
project.
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Technical
problems most of them dealing with connection and access to Internet,
computers, files, etc. Most teachers had to capture pages and save them
to the different computers in the lab, which originated other problems
like mixing and losing, waste of time... Other teachers used capturing
programmes like Memo-web. This made "surfing" more real for students, but
still, teachers had to dedicate a lot of time, and the different
tasks and exercises also lost spontaneity and authenticity. This problem
can only be solved with better networking equipment and connections (XDSI,
wingate, etc.).
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Time
problems. Most teachers and students carrying out the project were
not connected most of the time -or only one computer had access to the
connection. This made the sending of students' messages to their key pals
and to the on-line instructor a slow, time consuming and even annoying
task, especially for the teachers, who had to gather all the students messages
and send them later on. This fact must be taken into consideration when
evaluating email correspondence with the different foreign collaborators,
as letters were sent later than expected.
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Partner
classes "reliability". Although the choice of partner classes was made
"consciously", not all the schools had the same response from their foreign
partners. Some of the schools which initiated the project -foreign and
Spanish- had even let their partners down. Reasons for the failure may
be different. The participant teachers may have had different class schedules,
different course goals or the students from different classes had different
English proficiency level. In other occasions, the contact between teachers
has been "poor", or "pairing" the students from different classes has not
been done properly. Whatever the reasons are, these kind of problems happen
with email projects, but I think they can be solved if teachers get more
involved and plan things more carefully and if they communicate more between
them, speaking more about problems in their classes and sharing ideas about
possible solutions.
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Students
proficiency level. "Virtual English" was addressed to advanced
students (alumnes d'ampliació) in the second cycle of ESO -Catalan
Education system-. This premise could not be followed in all schools due
to organization limitations and other constrains. So, most students could
complete assignments related to writing messages, but many participants
in this experience did not know enough English to complete the tasks, specially
those related to grammar or vocabulary acquisition. This problem could
be solved by including different level tasks to "Virtual English" units.
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Computer
skills. "Virtual English" was written for students with basic computer
skills. During the course, those students were supposed to gain Internet
knowledge and practice, as some of the lessons in each unit were devoted
to this. Due to different reasons, not all the students participating in
the project were familiar with the computer and the keyboard. Training
the students to use the basic computer skills needed to follow the project
was also time consuming and confusing, as there were no lessons specially
written with this aim. Teachers should take this fact into consideration
and dedicate 2 or 3 lessons to train students to use basic computers skills
before beginning with unit 1 (if their students need it).
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Number
of units. "Virtual English" consists of 5 units, each one devoted to
the English language and to one different Internet service: email, surfing,
search engines, chat and web design. This is perhaps too long considering
that one "credit" consists of a term (2 months and a half). None of the
participating schools had enough time to complete the 5 units. Then, teachers
thinking of carrying out this project should time the different tasks of
each unit again and choose the ones which best suit their students' needs.
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