Course Nr.: # 1 Activities for collaborative learning, virtual exchange and internationalisation@home
Dates / Locations
2025
Valencia: Nov. 2 – 7
2026
Utrecht: February 22 – 27, April 27 – May 1; October 11 – 16
Valencia: November 1 – 6
2027
Prilep (North Macedonia) 10 – 15 January
Target Groups
This course has been designed for teachers in primary, secondary, vocational and adult education interested in pedagogical possibilities to make language teaching more meaningful and to increase students’ involvement by using technology to promote collaborative learning and running and/or supporting international telecollaborative learning projects.
Course Aims
The aim of the course is to promote participants’ professionalism in using, adapting and designing (project) tasks involving the practice of pairing students or groups of students to other learners (or native speakers) using video conferencing and other collaborative and social ICT tools for learning while increasing students’ language and cultural proficiency. In this course you will learn about the companion methodology and instructional approaches to make school (virtual) exchanges successful and develop related teacher competences including:
- organizing and mentoring telecollaborative learning activities with the help of educational technologies (e-Twinning)
– supporting international projects in the school run by colleague teachers of other subjects
Methodology
During the course plenary, tutor-led sessions on methodologies for computer mediated intercultural communicative proficiency development & presentations of related applications and materials are carried out. These are followed up by activities when participants familiarize themselves with a number of the demonstrated ICT-tools and web applications relevant for networked and task-based language learning.
Participants do practical work individually, in pairs and/or small groups applying the concepts and principles presented while analyzing related materials. Participants are supported to develop language activities and collaborative projects for use in their own teaching practice and/or international school projects.
To provide flexible access to course related tasks and resources a virtual learning environment (VLE) will be used. After the course concludes, participants will be able to access the VLE to promote follow-up communication and collaborative learning.
Preparation
A pre-course, online questionnaire will be provided to assess pre-knowledge and further align course content and procedures to needs and interests.
To optimize the relevance of the workshop for individual teachers, participants are invited to also bring (local) digital content and/or select topics relevant for their current practice to be elaborated when developing activities and materials during the course.
Day-to-Day Course Topics
The planning below is for the Utrecht session in April 2026
(The Agenda for all other course editions is based on 6 days)
Day 1
• Greet & Meet
• Cultural Event: National King’s Day
Koningsdag Day | Ultimate Guide to the Netherlands’ Biggest Celebration
Day 2
• Overview of course contents and structure in course learning management system (LMS)
• Key principles of collaborative learning
• Introduction to Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)
• Analysing synchronous and asynchronous communication: demo of applications & related classroom activities
• Introducing applications & related activities to support synchronous production & interaction in the classroom and in tele-collaborative project activities.
Day 3
• Introduction to the why and how of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT)
• Task design guidelines: Do’s and don’ts based on research & experience
• Hands-on activities: familiarization with and developing tasks for selected software tools • Introduction to applications and methodologies for conferencing, tandem, chat contexts (*Optional Breakout session: Introduction to VR settings)
• Hands-on activity: familiarization with selected applications
• Sharing experiences with particular applications
Day 4
• How to promote the development of intercultural communicative competence • Brainstorming on task ideas
• Sharing & practising oral assessment procedures using local and/or CEFR-based criteria
• How to implement virtual exchange with your department team and school: scenarios and strategies.
• Hands-on activities: implementing project ideas
Day 5
• Teacher collaboration competences: content planning, project design & management models, (online) tools and related EU resources
• Hands-on activities: implementing project ideas for tools and strategies to support internationalisation & tele-collaboration.
• Additional resources for continuing professional development related to tele-collaboration.
• Presenting and sharing designed activities and project ideas
• Planning further cooperation
• Course wrap-up and evaluation
Click here for the General TELLConsult Course Terms (registration, procedures, costs, cancellation, etc…)