Multimedia brings foreign voices into the classroom - live
More than 80 million students in European schools will study a foreign language this year, but most will lack the opportunity to talk to native speakers. Visiting a foreign country allows students to experience the immediacy of real life situations, but is expensive and usually brief. Now, with the help of the Telematics programme run by the European Commission, students are getting the opportunity to talk with native speakers frequently and easily - using videoconferencing and multimedia communications from their own classroom. Dr Paul Kelly, the head teacher of Monkseaton Community High School near Newcastle in the UK, recognised the potential of multimedia in this area several years ago. With colleagues from other schools around Europe he founded the Students Across Europe Language Network to tackle the practical problems. With the help of the Telematics programme, the SAELN network now links together schools in England, France, Germany and Spain with video conferencing. In a typical session, two groups of perhaps three students link up. First one side speaks in its native language while the students on the other side work to improve their skills. Then the two sides switch roles. The students are matched so that their level of ability in the foreign tongue is about equal. The effect is that students can regularly speak with one another and gain many of the benefits of real life interaction. The video links are supplemented by other multimedia work using, for example, CD-ROMs and email. So how did Dr Kelly turn the idea of a language network, into a working interactive multimedia language learning resource? First, there was the issue of financial funding. After some research Kelly and his colleagues discovered the Telematics programme run by DG XIII of the European Commission. It funds development of applications of new multimedia technologies to real life problems, and one of its priorities is to develop applications which can be used in schools across Europe. "I think the project may be a bit unusual as we had already got together before the opportunity with the Telematics programme arose, trying to find a way of funding the work we were hoping to run," explains Kelly. Kelly's initial contact was with the programme management in the European Commission. Then he obtained the support documentation, explaining the programme, its objectives and the application procedure. "We wrote the bid directly from those materials, following the instructions," says Kelly. But he would not always advise others to be quite so blasé. "I must admit, we did get quite a few things wrong." Kelly's initial expression of interest prompted advice from the programme management which the project team found extremely useful. "The Telematics programme managers have been tremendously supportive of the project, helping us to keep to the right procedures, but also helping us understand the EC context," he says. The SAELN project has, says Kelly, been extremely successful and the European Commission's response has been very positive. "The Commission asked us to present the project to the EU Parliament and others, as well as in many conferences." One of the things that the SAELN project has, which is unusual and contributes to its popularity, is clear evidence of success. An independent assessment conducted by the University of Durham has shown that students using the SAELN system perform much higher on exams. It also showed that students involved with the project have a much more positive attitude to working abroad and towards working with languages. In this respect, says Kelly, the project is a model for "tiny" EU institutions which can supplement the traditional big EU institutions. The SAELN project will, after the service has been tested with 200 teachers and 1000 students, provide a blueprint for an interactive language learning service for students as of 1999. The project is currently disseminating its results to educational authorities around Europe, and looking at expanding into other school subjects. Study of religion, culture and ethnic conflict are possibilities. The SAELN project is just one of 101 Telematics Applications success stories published in a book, "Advancing the Information Society", by the European Commission DG XIII.