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Dissemination for VBC staff, June 11, 2018
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- Category: Dissemination
- Hits: 721
On June 11, 2018 Vilnius Business College teachers had dissemination of Unity in Diversity platform and its updated tasks. 19 teachers participated in the event (on two occasions). They said they are eagerly waiting for the platform to be open for the general public so that they could use it in their lectures as well, logged in with their individual usernames and passwords. They admitted that they might adapt certain tasks and use them with their students.
Vakaris Šaulys
Lithuanian project manager
Staff workshop on UID A1 tasks June 15, 2018
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- Category: Dissemination
- Hits: 749
On June 15, 2018 Vilnius Business College teachers had a staff workshop of A1 tasks in an academic year closing meeting, where many teachers gathered from all specialties taught in the College. Teachers tried out the tasks using tablets and a few laptops; some of them used smartphones. It was noticed that in certain cases formatting looks better on laptops than on other portal devices. All in all, the A1 tasks appealed to participants. They agreed to have a full piloting session afterwards.
Vakaris Šaulys
Lithuanian project team
Piloting at Sapientia University
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- Category: Dissemination
- Hits: 772
On 2nd May 2018, there was a piloting of the E-learning platform for A1 modules held at Sapientia University. It was done with 14 first year students of Economics. The purpose of this session was to get the students acquainted with the E-learning platform and the study materials it provides.
The first impressions were quite positive. Students seemed interested in trying out new ways of language learning. They admitted that they have little experience with e-learning; they have never used an e-learning platform such as this one for language learning.
After a brief presentation of the platform itself and how it works, students tried out different A1 modules, by their choice, in accordance with their field of interest. They found the platform accessible and easy to use and many of them found the learning process interesting and useful. Almost all of them tried out at least one of the games found in these modules.
After the piloting, there was a questionnaire student filled in. Some general information about the students is listed here, as follows: 3 students are between 15 and 19 years old, 10 of them between 20 and 25 and one is older than 25. In all cases, their mother tongue is Hungarian, so 14 of them wrote C2 next to Hungarian. 13 of them marked A1 for English and one of them marked A2 for English. Their knowledge of Romanian ranged from B2 to A2. 3 students also marked German (A1 and A2 levels, respectively) and 2 students chose A1 level for French.
Their evaluation of the Learning Platform and of the module they did range from highly favourable to complimentary. 10 of the students answered that they would most certainly suggest the platform for other learners and 4 of them said they would possibly recommend it for other users.
More detailed information on their feed-back is provided in a separate Excel document.
Enikő Pál,
Romanian team member
Piloting at Sapientia 2
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- Category: Dissemination
- Hits: 775
On the 2nd of May 2018 two pilot sessions of the A1 level modules (Welcome, Hotel, Restaurant, Professional Skills) took place at the University of Sapientia in Csíkszereda, Romania.
The first group consisted of 9 students, all of whom are students of the University of Sapientia studying economics. The second group consisted of 6 students studying engineering at the same institution. The participants marked English, Hungarian, Romanian, and German as the languages they master with varying proficiency, ranging between A1 and C2 language levels. With a single exception the age of the students ranges between 18 and 25.
All the students tried out the Hungarian version of the A1 level modules, some of them also worked on the Romanian and the English ones. The vast majority of the students found the tasks and the games useful, interesting, and creative. The participants considered that the exercises included in these modules developed their reading skills, enriched their vocabulary, and improved their grammar habits. Interestingly, the students felt that they benefited more from written exercises than from video or audio materials. Games and face- to- face tasks were unanimously appreciated and enjoyed by everyone.
The comments written at the end of the questionnaire corroborate the good results obtained by the A1 modules on the value scale: some commenters emphasized the usefulness of the tasks once again. Two commenters complained that they were unable to access the correct solutions to the crossword and hangman games they had played.
With respect to the way the content is organized, students made oral comments about the friendly design, and the straightforward, user-friendly structure of the e-learning platform.
Aliz Farkas
Romanian project team member
 
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Piloting at Sapientia University
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- Category: Dissemination
- Hits: 755
On 16th April 2018, there was a piloting of the project-learning platform at Sapientia University. It was carried out with 2nd year students majoring in engineering. There was a group of 9 students working on five laptops, but also using their smart phones.
The first impressions are rather positive as students seemed interested in learning languages. Students liked the platform and many of them evaluated the learning process as interesting and useful. During the piloting held on 16th April 2018, there were 9 questionnaires filled. 6 students are between 20 and 25 and 3 are older than 25.
Their knowledge of languages ranged from C2 to A1. Their mother tongue is Hungarian (all marked it with C2). Other languages they speak range from A1 to B1 and they include English and Romanian.
In question number 4 students evaluated the Learning platform. Most of them answered that they agree or mostly agree with most of statements in the task. Most students have tried out the A1 modules in Hungarian, Romanian and some of them in English and German. Most of the opinion expressed is rather positive. No student expressed their opinion related to case studies or face-to-face tasks.
In the last section students had to write their comments regarding their experience with the platform. Almost every student wrote a comment. They mentioned that the platform was interesting and useful, they mostly liked it. However, in their opinion it could be visually more appealing. They also mentioned that they could use it better if the platform had more varied topics, for example something connected to engineering, and if other language combinations were available (e.g. Hungarian guidance in learning Spanish).
Enikő Tankó
Romanian project member
Piloting at SAPIENTIA (Miercurea-Ciuc)
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- Category: Dissemination
- Hits: 710
Piloting at the SAPIENTIA University was carried out on 27 March, then on 24 and 25 April 2018. The piloting involved trying out and doing some of the exercises/tasks of the Hungarian and Romanian A1 level modules on the project’s e-learning platform involving modules such as “Welcome”, “Hotel”, “Restaurant” and “Professional Skills” with additional games and learning materials. The piloting was done in the university’s IT labs and seminar rooms. On each day a different group of students were involved in the piloting sessions.
On 27 March a group of 1st year Philology students took part in the piloting session. The mother tongue of all 9 students is Hungarian and they mentioned Romanian, English and German as other languages they speak. As they are majoring in Romanian Language and Literature – English Language and Literature they were mostly interested in the Romanian A1 level modules and they mentioned that if they had learnt Romanian in such a way they would have acquired the language better.
The students (N=6) who participated on 24 April are 2nd year students majoring in different engineering studies, some of them attend Engineering and Management in Catering and Agrotourism. They enjoyed the tasks and the games and they were happy about their achievements.
The last group (N=9), on 25 April, were also 2nd year students. These students are majoring in either Romanian Language and Literature – English Language and Literature or World Literature and Comparative Literature – English Language and Literature. All participating students in this group attend the teacher training modules as part of their university courses. Therefore, I told this group to look at the tasks and the learning activities on the e-learning platform as a possible teaching aid and to find contexts where this platform can be used in their future teaching career. Many students from this group added additional comments and reported that the tasks are useful and enjoyable.
The total number of participants is 24 students. All students are Hungarian native speakers and have learnt Romanian, English and German languages at school. Their age ranges from 18 to 30, however the majority of students fall within the 20-25 age group.
Zsuzsanna Dégi
Romanian team member
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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.