Learning Circles build skills, motivation and self-confidence in Lativia

How it started

I am a teacher of foreign languages, living in a small town in Latvia. As every dedicated teacher, I have always been looking for effective methods of teaching and ways to motivate my students. Motivating students is not easy, as we seldom meet foreigners here in Kraslava and we do not have newspapers or video films in English.

One of the activities we undertake in the lessons is to pretend to be foreigners and to speak English. But unfortunately, as soon as we come across a minor difficulty we switch to the native language. Writing has always been the most discouraging aspect. According to a survey I conducted, only one out of six students enjoys writing. No wonder, as it takes much time and effort. Besides, knowing that only one person will be your reader doesn’t excite very much. Finally, textbooks do not give a realistic picture of the world we are living in.

But everything changed when we got a computer lab in our school and our school was included in I*EARN (International Education and Resource Network) and later in the GTP (Global Teenager Project). It all started about 5 years ago and it changed teaching and learning completely.

I must explain that at that time computers and I had absolutely nothing in common. In the rare occasion where I had to type something, I felt extremely uncomfortable and had to ask someone, usually the student sitting next to me, to start my computer and help me. I became much more confident when - step by step - I learned to do it myself.

I remember my first computer lesson - it took place in the car driving our computer teacher and me to the first seminar about I*EARN. Since then my students and I have participated in many different projects, but the most meaningful has been the Learning Circles organised by the GTP.


Learning Circles

The idea of the Learning Circles belongs to a wonderful woman, scientist and educator from California, Margaret Riel. The intention is to create a circle of schools - connected through computers and Internet - simultaneously working on the same topic, exchanging information and learning from each other. The project usually takes 10 to 16 weeks and two circles are organised every year.

The aim of the first project my class and I participated in was to make a youth magazine in cooperation with 6 other classes in different countries. The articles in this magazine were divided in thematic sections and the themes for the sections were collectively chosen and proposed to other members of the circle by every participating school. All schools were supposed to send contributions to their partner schools via e-mail and host their own topics, including the input received from other schools. Students then compiled their section of the collaborative magazine, selecting texts suitable for their concept, editing and illustrating them. Finally, they published the section and sent it to partners.

In our case we were linked with three American, one Italian, one German and one Kazakhstan school. It was our first Learning Circle and we were very proud to have produced a great magazine. Our section had 4 parts about the following: ‘Teen Problems’ (for which we received over 50 contributions), ‘Travelling Is the Best Education’, ‘Music in My Life’ and ‘Funny Stories.’ After the project was finished, I got feedback from my students that showed how valuable and useful it had been to them.

The first circle was so successful and the cooperation so good, that we decided to continue and we participated in a mini-circle - based on the same principle - the following year. This time it included not only writing, but also reading. John Galsworthy’s story ‘Quality’, read in the original version, provoked a vivid discussion and developed the students’ critical thinking. This was followed by writing reports on different aspects of the topic ‘The World of Work.’ The project was implemented during regular lessons and was included in the curriculum. During the lessons, students discussed the issues, learned necessary theory and reported on their work. Research and writing texts was home assignment.

This time the topic was more difficult, included new elements and was actually what is called an integrated project, as it involved several subjects, such as history, sociology, economy, English and computer studies. Following this scheme of growing difficulty, the students of this class in their third year of the secondary school designed and implemented a project themselves, collaborating with 3 partner schools abroad. I only served as a consultant, as they already had all necessary skills and knowledge amongst them. The project was planned, worked out and presented at the meeting with partners in Austria.

By then, I had enough experience and information to be able to analyse and summarize the projects we had worked on. I came to clearly understand that jointly, ICT and the project method reach a new quality and can be successfully used in the classroom. They provide teaching and learning with new content, give it deeper meaning, create a new work environment and provide the opportunity to cooperate with partners from all over the world. It broadens the scope of school subjects and the walls of the classroom and accelerates progress in English learning. But how fast was it?

I asked myself this question and decided to try to measure it by giving my students Oxford placement tests before and after the project. Last year I participated in two Learning Circles with two different classes during 10 weeks. Although classes and topics were different, the results were similar: Both classes made substantial progress in this short time - the weaker group progressing even faster.

This was a different kind of Learning Circles, organised as part of the Global Teenager Project. Project participants from different countries were grouped according to the theme they had chosen (we worked on the topic HIV/AIDS) and were supposed to host a question for which they received all their partners’ answers. At the same time they had to find out everything about their theme in their own country as well, using the Internet and other sources of information, to be able to answer all questions asked by the partners. Every school team summarized the received information and obtained a full picture of the problem in different countries. It connected school studies with real life, which made the project especially valuable.

This semester my new class is participating in the Learning Circles, exploring their own culture and learning about the culture of 8 other countries on different continents. As before, I assessed their level of English and hope it will have risen after the project is finished.

Of course, it’s impossible to overestimate what young people gain from the participation in collaborative projects. That is why I have decided that all my classes will go through the Learning Circles, as they have proved to be motivating and gain big results.



Results

In my opinion and according to the feedback received from students, there were many benefits gained from the collaborative projects. The first to mention is extending the knowledge of the English language and improving results in all language aspects, especially in reading and writing.

According to the data received from the placement tests before and after the project, most students raised their level of English. Out of 19 students who took both tests, only 3 students remained within the same elementary level they had before. But 16 students improved their results and raised their level and 6 students improved it considerably (for example, from post elementary to upper-intermediate). Before the project, there were 7 elementary students in the class, but after the project only 3. In the second tested group, out of 16 students tested twice, 5 students showed more or less the same results, but 11 progressed and 5 jumped 2 or 3 steps of the scale. It’s a very encouraging result, achieved in such a short period of time.

Secondly, students saw the possibility to work on computers, learning more about them and improving PC skills as an additional benefit. Project participants not only typed texts, but also practised using e-mail, the Internet, chat and other tools. The students who didn’t know how to use e-mail and other tools before the project started now learned to use these tools. I am going to make a survey to see how many students improved their computer skills, and to what extent.
In addition, the project was a great source of information. Information that would be difficult to get from anywhere else, as it came straight from people living in different countries and it definitely widened the students’ outlook. Besides this, project participants obtained other skills that are equally important for their future: They learned to work in teams, to communicate and to cooperate with foreign partners.

As a teacher, I was happy that participation in the Learning Circles gave my students strong motivation. They were stimulated to work hard and creatively, as they knew that many people in different parts of the world would read the materials they produced. It gave them what every writing person needs - an audience. That is why they did their best thinking their ideas over and polishing their texts. And, finally, the language was used not because the teacher demanded it, but because they couldn’t be understood without it. In this project, language plays the main role. It works as a means of communication. It is especially important and necessary for people living in small provincial town like ours, as it connects them with the entire world.

I was also glad to observe my students grow personally and I believe that what changed them and made them more mature was responsibility. Doing the project, they knew that other people’s work depended on them. They definitely became more self-confident as they started to believe in their strengths and abilities. In the process of the project I further noticed that the atmosphere in the classroom improved as the students worked as a team. The project actually became a part of their life, as they made friends not only in the group, but also abroad among their partners.

The project enriched not only students, but also me, their teacher. It gave me an opportunity to work creatively, to broaden my knowledge of computers, not only to teach, but also to cooperate with students and to build friendships. I was glad when my colleague from school, observing our work, also decided to participate in the Learning Circles.


Spreading the word

Having obtained the experience of using collaborative projects and being aware of the benefits of learning cooperatively in the virtual classroom, I wanted to introduce other teachers to the method. Being asked by Latvian I*EARN coordinators, my school administration and the British Council project manager, I regularly gave presentations and ran workshops for teachers, sharing ideas and experiences of using ICTs in teaching.

But it was obvious that more systematic and longer training was necessary to show the variety of possibilities of ICTs and to become familiar with the tools. Besides, many teachers were afraid of computers and it takes time to cope with this fear and to build confidence. Therefore I wrote an application to get financing for this idea, and together with my colleagues from school we organized a week-long ICT summer school for country teachers. We were lucky to receive a grant from the Global Catalyst Foundation that allowed us to rent 2 computer labs and premises for workshops. About 40 teachers, from mostly country schools in the region, showed interest in the project and were trained to use ICTs in teaching English. They were also introduced to GTP and the Learning Circles and were guided through all the project stages. At the end of the week, four teacher project groups presented their small projects that they had worked on. As a result, 4 classes from 3 Latvian schools participated in the Learning Circles in Autumn 2001 and 4 classes from 4 schools are taking part in the project at present.

I am planning to continue popularising the Learning Circles among my colleagues and training teachers as GTP coordinator in Latvia. I hope it will help teachers provide their students with better education, necessary for living and working in the 21st century.

Lessons learned

Having been around since ICT started to be introduced in education in our country, and having gone a long way myself, I have learned many lessons. The most important for me was that it’s never too late to learn new things, even if they look quite complicated and even if you feel frightened. If we go slowly, step-by-step, and don’t let difficulties scare us, focusing on small tasks and objectives, the aim that seems so huge and unreal will be achieved.

I also learned to rejoice sharing with others. It might seem that we are wasting time, but what we give out, will come back. We get a satisfactory feeling from doing something really meaningful, helping others, colleagues and students. This way we make a difference.

I learned that if we work honestly and show initiative, our work will be appreciated and we will get what we couldn’t even dream of: A modern computer, a photocopying machine and, more important, respect from students and professionals.

I hope that I haven’t learned all the lessons yet and that there are more waiting for me in the future.


More information
Website Kraslava Gymnasium, Latvia www.krdc.lv/itschool.htm
Ms Ligija Kolosovska, English and Spanish teacher at Kraslava Gymnasium, Latvia: lika_kolos@apollo.lv