The E-LIVE project brings together experts in the field of foreign language education, intercultural virtual exchange, teacher education, school education and technology-enhanced pedagogy from France, the Netherlands and Spain. The consortium addresses crucial digital pedagogical innovation and social needs for enhancing inclusive intercultural communicative competence development and digital literacies through the pedagogical integration of virtual exchange projects at language-teacher education institutions and schools.

Key project objectives are to:

1) Innovate and enrich language teacher training programmes in higher education to develop digital literacy skills and organisational, pedagogical and intercultural competences of (trainee) teachers by putting virtual exchange projects at the heart of the pedagogical programme, while promoting experiential and reflective learning as well as action research.

2) Strengthen the cooperation among schools and teacher training institutions to:

jointly provide pedagogical solutions that help foster intercultural communicative competence and digital skills in authentic learning settings by facilitating virtual exchange projects, and
empower (trainee) teachers to become the agents of innovative pedagogical change
3) Enrich and make foreign language teaching programmes at schools more meaningful by offering learners opportunities to engage in virtual exchanges with peers from other cultures.

4) Exploit the possibilities that online interactive tools offer with a view to enriching and diversifying teaching for intercultural language learning. New experiences will be piloted making use of cutting-edge technology (Virtual & Augmented Reality and/or Artificial Intelligence) to promote engagement in virtual exchange activities. Research will be conducted on the usability of such emerging technologies for language education.

5) Address super-diversity and contribute to inclusion by facilitating student participation in intercultural virtual exchange projects that promote intercultural dialogue among diverse populations. E-LIVE embraces super-diversity as a powerful synergy to enrich teams, organisations and society in general. In addition, the specific needs of a diverse student population will be addressed and activities deployed to provide the best opportunities for comprehensive social and academic development for (trainee) teachers and students in different educational sectors.

• dr. Silvia Canto

Het TILA-project richt zich met name op de volgende doelen:

• het vernieuwen en verrijken van het vreemde talenonderwijs op middelbare scholen door het didactisch integreren van interculturele telecollaboratieactiviteiten tussen leerlingen uit verschillende landen en culturen;
• het ontwikkelen, implementeren en evalueren van modellen en materialen voor interculturele telecollaboratietaken;
• het piloten van lessen op het gebied van interculturele telecollaboratie en het bestuderen van hun didactische potentie om taalleren motiverend en effectief te maken, en om de ontwikkeling van de interculturele competentie van jongere leerlingen te stimuleren.
• onderzoek verrichten naar de meerwaarde van telecollaboratieprojecten op school: impact op communicative vaardigheid, interculturele competenties en motivatie

• dr. Silvia Canto

• dr. Silvia Canto

The TeCoLa project brings together experts in the fields of foreign language education, intercultural telecollaboration, teacher education, and technology mediated pedagogy from six countries (Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and UK). Focus is on developing and testing innovative gamified telecollaboration approaches for secondary schools that address issues of learning diversity in intercultural and content integrated language learning and teaching. At the very heart of the learning process are authentic task-based interactions among peers from different socio-cultural, educational and language backgrounds using telecollaboration for communicating and collaborate internationally. 

More specifically, TeCoLa aims:

(1) To empower pre- & in-service teachers to use telecollaboration and gamification in order to:

-facilitate intercultural communicative competence development as a prime objective of foreign language learning and European citizenship building,

-create conditions for real-life communication in a foreign language in lingua franca or tandem constellations with a potential for incidental language learning,

-foster autonomous collaboration and authenticity as key principles of task-based learning,

-strengthen personalized learning and learner agency as part of a differentiated pedagogy approach

(2) To internationalise education by integrating telecollaboration at schools to innovate, enrich and make language teaching programmes more meaningful and effective.

(3) To contribute to the integration of all pupils regardless of their background by promoting intercultural dialogue in telecollaboration events among diverse populations of pupils from secondary schools across Europe.

(4) To exploit the possibilities web 2.0 applications, virtual worlds, serious games and gamification offer with a view to diversifying teaching and facilitating content integrated language learning alongside with intercultural dialogue and play in telecollaboration encounters.

TeCoLa addresses two main target groups:

(1) A diversity of secondary educational institutions including

(a) schools that pay special attention to meaningful and intensified foreign language practice in their curricula (bilingual education, CLIL, LinQ schools in NL)

(b) Dalton/Montessori schools

(c) vocational education

(d) schools where language learning and teaching is a challenge because of cultural, cognitive, social, or financial diversity

(2) Teacher education institutions as carriers of pedagogical innovation and reform at secondary schools through professional development of both pre-service and in-service teachers.

TeCoLa will develop a multimodular approach for professional teacher development around task-based gamified telecollaboration. The TeCoLa OER pool serves as an online one-stop shop with all educational resources created in the project’s lifetime to support teachers and teacher educators with an interest in gamified telecollaboration for improved foreign language learning at secondary schools. The following elements will be included:

-teacher development modules covering gamified telecollaboration for intercultural communication and European citizenship building, content integrated and vocational language learning, differentiated pedagogical practices, and learner preparation;

-telecollaboration tasks for intercultural communication, gamification, subject knowledge acquisition and sharing, and assessment;

-online pedagogical video guides for teacher training and course support;

-case study reports on piloting activities involving gamified telecollaboration for differentiated foreign language learning under conditions of learning diversity.

TeCoLa will provide tailor-made pedagogical training activities to around 200 teachers and teacher educators to develop their competencies and get them started with their own telecollaboration-enhanced courses. 48 teachers in the six project countries will participate in piloting courses in connection with the TeCoLa case studies. The entire process of course creation, implementation and evaluation will be accompanied by a continuous coaching collaboration between the teachers involved and a TeCoLa telecollaboration expert.

In addition to the project’s direct impact on the participating teachers, the project will also ensure a long-term impact on teachers and teacher educators through the combined effect of three measures: the open availability of tried-and-tested educational resources, a series of regional/national and European workshops, webinars and Multiplier Events, and the TeCoLa networking and community building facilities on the TeCoLa website (www.tecola.eu).

Finally, the TeCoLa team fully embraces open pedagogy approach ranging from open source tools to open content learning materials to an open attitude towards the pedagogic community. 

• dr. Silvia Canto