International Collaboration Between Students

[Martin Musgrove]

Our students at Viktor Rydberg High School in Stockholm Sweden are not native speakers of English. Yet their level of English is very high approaching fluency. They breeze through the Swedish curriculum and as their ability is way beyond the national average. It is therefore necessary for teachers of English at our school to create our own program in order to stimulate and challenge our students. We are interested in learning about the American English high school curriculum which we feel we could borrow from and adapt to our students needs. It would also be great if we could forge some connections with American high school students and incorporate some collaborative work through some kind of online media: blogs, chat rooms, video conferencing.

If there is anyone out there who could offer assistance on curriculum materials or an international cooperation please let me know.

[Rita Oates]

Hi, Martin,
I would like to invite you to join the world's largest international online community of students and teachers through ePals. It is free. www.epals.com We have a community that touches about 16 million students and teachers in 200 countries and territories. Many of the teachers like you are searching for pen pals in English-speaking countries, and we have many possibilities for you.

We also offer safe and protected communications tools, after you match up students. We have SchoolMail and SchoolBlog, both free. Your students might have a topic that they "debate" on a blog with students in a classroom in UK, US, South Africa, Australia, etc. The blog could be open only to students in the classes and not to the whole world. Students could "write the end of the story" or tell about their lives outside of school, whatever is of interest to them and to their teachers.

In addition, we have a chat room that only people you allow can enter. So you could have real time discussion in that way. We have some other communications options coming in January 2009.

One of the easy projects we offer as a starting point is "The Way We Are" -- to have a set of email exchanges between students. You can also search our Teacher Forums to see what might be other interesting collaborations. You could have short term collaborations on projects, or pen pals for the whole school year.

Another teacher in Sweden found some short stories that both teachers taught ("Lady or the Tiger?") and had students write "What choice did the protagonist make and what happened next?" The student writing was shared on a blog so that all students could read all the responses.

A teacher of English in Bosnia started a project, "What does English sound like?" and invited teachers around the world to have students record short sayings and post the sound files to a blog, so that all could hear different sayings said with different accents. My favorite was "There's a bright white light in the sky tonight" said by a speaker from southern Alabama. (grin)

Or maybe when your students watch Jon Stewart (who is shown on CNN in Sweden, I think) there are jokes that they don't get and would like to have U.S. students explain them.

Please check us out and see how we might help to advance the language skills of your students. The collaborations are powerful! Please let me know if you have questions.

[Jennifer Krill]

In Pasco County, Florida our administrators, teachers, and students are beginning to collaborate globally with Sweden and China through a partnership with the International School Connections organization using Moodle and a variety of online video conferencing tools. It is beginning to take shape across ten schools teams from the three countries. I will have to keep you informed of the process as we move forward.

[debby]

Internationally the English courses are being offered by english school oxford which are very nice and impressive English courses suitable for the students whose native language is not English. They are superb teaching guides who will provide all information regarding how to take admission in UK especially in Oxford where many universities are providing their best knowlege to improve reading, writing and speaking English language fluently. I think the natives are the very teachers who can improve your English well. Student must avail these linguistic cources in Oxford as my nephew is doing.