Stories

“East Speaks West, West Speaks East” has been accepted to be presented in the 4th edition of the International Conference “ICT for Language Learning” which will take place in Florence, Italy on the 20 -21 October. This conference has the aim to promote and share good practice and transnational cooperation in the field of the application of ICT to language learning and training. It is also an excellent opportunity for the presentation of previous and current language learning projects funded by the European Commission and by other sources.

It has been said that the need to learn a foreign language is as old as the human history. At the onset of the 19th and 20th century, various language learning and teaching methods were tried and tested. This development has gained momentum until the 21st century. From the grammar school of the 16th to 18th centuries to the present, language teachers and learners are now using the internet. Language learning websites, language portals and even virtual based language schools are defying distance and time between learners and teachers. “East Speaks West, West Speaks West”, joins this development in language education. Its pedagogical approach aims to answer the needs of the 21st century learners without discarding the positive elements of the traditional approaches of language learning. Though this Online Collaboration is very much practical oriented, it still holds on to the teaching and learning of the “grammar of the language”. Only that the approach is more flexible. Members of this Online Collaboration experience language learning on an interactive, functional and structural view. We do not believe in isolating each of this view from one another. Hence, an immersion in the language learning process.

“East Speaks West, West Speaks East” will continue with a new name titled “East Speaks West, West Speaks East: Two Continents, One Classroom”. This Online Collaboration will be presented at the upcoming conference in Ireland.