Teaching cross-cultural competence and CLIL: a CLIL approach in International Relations University Courses

International relations professionals need cross-cultural competence and English language communication skills to function in the international arena (Graddol 1997). English language communication skills are necessary not only to communicate with foreign colleagues (Bocanegra-Valle 2014) but also to access the vast amount of knowledge transmitted in English over the internet (Ku, Zussman 2010). This work reports the use of CLIL and cross-cultural training in the University of Messina International Relations Advanced Degree Program as a method to raise students’ level of English as quickly as possible while giving them the essential intercultural skills for work in the international field. The researchbased course program combined cross-cultural communication training (Storti, 1997; Lewis, 1999; Gannon, 2004, Harris and Moran, 2007; U.S Peace Corps Training Handbook 2012,) and intercultural competence skill development (Bennett, 1998). Two objectives were proposed: 1) develop cross-cultural communication competence; 2) bring students up to a B2 level as fast as possible. The final exam demonstrated significant growth in the areas of cross-cultural competence as well as an increase in European Common Framework level ranging from .5 to 1.0 depending on the student. Students expressed their belief that what they had learned would be useful for their future career. Combining CLIL with intercultural competence building seems to be effective in meeting two objectives: increasing English language fluency and developing cross-cultural communication competence. More research is recommended to further document this method for increasing English communication proficiency while developing interculturally competent international professionals.

English as a medium of instruction in teaching other languages: attitudes and practices

Internationalisation of HE and emergence of English as a global academic lingua franca used by people who share neither a common native tongue nor cultural and educational background have not only offered more opportunities but also raised challenges. According to recent European surveys, the percentage of pupils attaining the level of independent user in English varies from 14% to 82%, which evidences the potential and the complexity for English as a medium of instruction at tertiary level. This study aims to present the model of foreign language instruction at Vytautas Magnus University where one third of 30 languages are taught through English. It investigates the attitudes and practices of teachers in delivering their English-medium language courses by discussing the questions whether teaching other languages through English is psychologically, culturally and educationally preferable for teachers and students, whether it can limit the content taught and require a special methodology, how the teaching process changes with multiple languages used in the classroom and what level of English is necessary for teachers and students to ensure high quality of English-medium language teaching. The study is based on qualitative methodology with 12 language teachers participating as respondents. The results reveal areas in need of improvement.

The application of communicative language teaching : a particular case in a polish primary school

L’objectiu d’aquest estudi és examinar si l’Ensenyament Comunicatiu de la Llengua és usat per les mestres quan duen a terme classes d’anglès com a llengua estrangera en una escola de primària polonesa, amb un context educatiu especial. Aquesta recerca qualitativa analitza cinc conjunts principals d’informació relacionats amb l’ensenyament de la llengua estrangera que caracteritzen l’enfocament de l’Ensenyament Comunicatiu de la Llengua i que estan centrats en: el coneixement i les creences dels mestres sobre l’enfocament de l’Ensenyament Comunicatiu de la Llengua; l’ús de la llengua; els aspectes de la llengua anglesa que s’ensenyen; les característiques de les activitats: i el procés d’ensenyament. Per aquest objectiu, s’ha proporcionat un qüestionari a cada mestra d’anglès i s’han portat a terme algunes observacions d’aula per tal de recollir dades, analitzar-les i extreure’n unes conclusions. Els resultats de la investigació mostren que les mestres d’anglès donen bastant suport a l’enfocament de l’Ensenyament Comunicatiu de la Llengua, així com apliquen força sovint els seus trets característics quan porten a terme les classes.

¿Por qué los estudiantes participan poco en la gestión de la universidad? La opinión del profesorado = Why do students participate so little in the management of the university? The opinion of the teaching staff

El artículo invita a reflexionar sobre la participación de los estudiantes en la gestión y el gobierno de la universidad a partir de una investigación. Se centra en la opinión y percepción que el profesorado implicado directamente en la gestión de la docencia tiene sobre esta participación. Se aportan datos relevantes que ayudan a disponer de una visión más completa de un fenóneno complejo y multidimensional como es la participación estudiantil. Sus interpretaciones nos ofrecen información significativa que contribuye a comprender algunas de las causas de la baja participación y nos orienta hacia las posibles estrategias a emprender para intentar invertir esta tendencia

La educación en valores democráticos en los manuales de la asignatura Educación para la Ciudadanía

Este artículo aporta los resultados de un estudio sobre legislación educativa y manuales de Educación para la Ciudadanía con el objeto de visibilizar la presencia de la educación en valores democráticos y su evolución en el contexto de los cambios sociales y políticos recientes. En la primera parte, nos adentramos en la reflexión sobre la moral y la vivencia de los valores en nuestras realidades, con el objeto de analizar la dimensión ética de la sociedad. Abordamos el debate de la crisis de valores y se realizan propuestas sobre la dimensión teleológica y axiológica de la educación en y para la democracia. En la segunda parte, se aporta la síntesis del estudio de la presencia de la educación en valores en algunas leyes educativas aprobadas a partir de la Constitución Española de 1978. Se describe cómo se ha incorporado la educación en valores a la normativa y qué formas ha ido adoptando. Se dedica especial atención al área de Educación para la Ciudadanía propuesta en la loe como espacio de formación ética y política. En el último apartado sobre educación en valores y manuales de ciudadanía se presentan, en primer lugar, diferentes significados y principios de ciudadanía para enmarcar teóricamente la investigación. A continuación, se visualizan los resultados del análisis de contenido de los valores presentes en una muestra de manuales de Educación para la Ciudadanía editados en el marco de desarrollo de la loe. Nuestro interés ha sido mostrar cómo los libros de texto traducen la legislación, qué valores de la democracia priorizan y cómo los conceptualizan. Se finaliza el artículo con las conclusiones que recogen un conjunto de apuntes en los que se considera la crisis como posibilidad y se propone seguir avanzando en proyectos de democracia, ciudadanía y educación en valores innovadores.

On-line teaching and Copyright : Any Hopes for an EU Harmonized Playground?

Education never fails to be mentioned ¿ and, often, mentioned first ¿ as a public interest that justifies an exception to copyright. Educational purposes were already present in the first version of the Berne Convention of 18862 and have remained there (although in revised language) ever since. The WIPO Copyright Treaty of 19963 expressly referred to education in its Preamble, when ¿Recognizing the need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors andthe larger public interest, particularly education, research and access to information, as reflected in the Berne Convention¿ (emphasis added). And morerecently, the EU Directive on Copyright in the Information Society4 stressed its goal ¿to promote learning and culture by protecting works and other subjectmatter while permitting exceptions or limitations in the public interest for the purpose of education and teaching¿ (Recital 14, emphasis added).

Online Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, a book review

Peer-reviewed

University teacher competences in a virtual teaching/learning environment : analysis of a teacher training experience

This paper attempts to shed light on the competencies a teacher must have inorder to teach in online university environments. We will relate a teacher trainingexperience, which was designed taking into account the methodological criteriaestablished in line with previous theoretical principles. The main objective of ouranalysis is to identify the achievements and difficulties of a specific formativeexperience, with the ultimate goal of assessing the suitability of this conceptualmethodologicalframework for the design of formative proposals aiming to contribute tothe development of teacher competencies for virtual environments.

Estudi introductori sobre l’educació per a la ciutadania a primària

Aquest treball pretén aproximar-se a la controvèrsia a través d’alguns dels qüestionaments que es plantegen; hi ha alguna relació entre l’educació i el concepte de ciutadania? És possible ensenyar ciutadania o valors cívics sense adoctrinar en pro d’una ideologia determinada? En tant que és una matèria que toca directament a l’àrea de filosofia, hi ha alguns autors que hagin tractat aquesta temàtica? Però també s’han generat preguntes més contextuals com: Què diu la legislació espanyola sobre l’Educació Ciutadana? Quin posicionament pren Europa sobre aquest tipus d’educació?

An empirical study on faculty perceptions and teaching practices of Wikipedia

Peer-reviewed

The Transformation of Practical Teaching Focusing on Dialogic Learning

This study investigates the transformation of practical teaching in a Catalan school, connected to the design, implementation and development of project-based learning, and focusing on dialogic learning to investigate its limits and possibilities. Qualitative and design-based research (DBR) methods are applied. These methods are based on empirical educational research with the theory-driven of learning environments. DBR is proposed and applied using practical guidance for the teachers of the school. It can be associated with the current proposals for Embedding Social Sciences and Humanities in the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges. This position statement defends the social sciences and the humanities as the most fundamental and important ideas to face all societal challenges. The results of this study show that before the training process, teachers apply dialogic learning in specific moments (for example, when they speak about the weekend); however, during the process and after the process, they work systematically with dialogic learning through the PEPT: they start and finish every activity with a individual and group reflection about their own processes, favouring motivation, reasoning and the implication of all the participants. These results prove that progressive transformations of teaching practice benefit cooperative work in class

Introducing online teaching in Humanities: A case study about the acceptance of online activities by the academic staff of classical languages

The purpose of this paper is to show the perceptions of the academic staff of classical languages (ancient Greek and Latin) concerning use of online activities during their courses. The study was carried out in three countries: Greece (three major Universities), Spain (University of Barcelona) and the United States (University of California, Berkeley) with the participation of thirty-three academic instructors. Depending on the level of use and acceptance of the ICT and following G. Moore¿s classification, we separated the participating academics in three groups: the conservatives, the mainstream and the early adopters. The fact that the smallest group is the third clearly shows the necessity for teachers¿ preparation and training before introducing innovative projects in the classroom. Since the starting point for the application of innovation in the classroom is the teacher, policy makers should focus on helping them become conscious of changes in teaching methods and include their opinion during the design of innovative projects.

Introducing online teaching in Humanities: A case study about the acceptance of online activities by the academic staff of classical languages

The purpose of this paper is to show the perceptions of the academic staff of classical languages (ancient Greek and Latin) concerning use of online activities during their courses. The study was carried out in three countries: Greece (three major Universities), Spain (University of Barcelona) and the United States (University of California, Berkeley) with the participation of thirty-three academic instructors. Depending on the level of use and acceptance of the ICT and following G. Moore¿s classification, we separated the participating academics in three groups: the conservatives, the mainstream and the early adopters. The fact that the smallest group is the third clearly shows the necessity for teachers¿ preparation and training before introducing innovative projects in the classroom. Since the starting point for the application of innovation in the classroom is the teacher, policy makers should focus on helping them become conscious of changes in teaching methods and include their opinion during the design of innovative projects.

Enseñar a aprender a pensar en los centros educativos, incluso en las actividades de evaluación.= Teaching to learn how to think at schools, even within assessment activities

El auténtico protagonismo de los centros educativostiene que dirigirse a ayudar a pensar a sus alumnos y aenseñarlos a aprender, es decir, el docente tiene queenseñar estrategias de aprendizaje y debe promover elesfuerzo del estudiante para facilitar la construcción deesquemas y el aprendizaje permanente.El profesor debe utilizar cualquier situación deaprendizaje para enseñar dichas estrategias deaprendizaje, incluso en las situaciones de evaluación;por lo tanto, en este trabajo se sugiere que en lasevaluaciones de los alumnos y alumnas se tenga encuenta la metacognición como factor fundamental en elaprendizaje y la enseñanza