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Dubai – Japan Virtual International Exchange. Nicole Shammas. Dubai-Japan VIE. Who? Dubai Women’s College Bachelor Year One students and mixed level Osaka Gakuin University How did we find each other? JALT (Japan Association of Language Teachers) When?
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Dubai – JapanVirtual International Exchange Nicole Shammas
Dubai-Japan VIE Who? Dubai Women’s College Bachelor Year One students and mixed level Osaka GakuinUniversity How did we find each other? JALT (Japan Association of Language Teachers) When? October – December 2011 This presentation:What, why, how, student feedback. .
VIE Goals To link English language students in Dubai and Japan to promote cultural awareness To help improve students’ accuracy and fluency in speaking and writing To introduce students to Ning and Google video facility
Why a virtual international exchange? Big results: small effort Extremely motivating Develop: Cultural Awareness English language Core soft skills : Empathy Confidence Social graces/Conversational etiquette
What did we do? Japan/Dubai Same activities Same times Set the scene: Students were shown pictures of Japan followed with a discussion of what we knew and what we wanted to know
What did we do? Students wrote introductions and asked questions to their Japanese partner which were posted on Ning - a social networking site Students identified and corrected mistakes in their postings
http://dwcvie.ning.com/ http://dwcvie.ning.com/
What did we do? Two synchronous meetings - Gmail used for video conferencing First meeting students met in groups - less intimidating One group at a time it gave other students valuable ‘viewing time’. Introductions: light Exchange\Japan introductions
What did we do? The second meeting we had was intentionally more focused: students talked about their favorite cultural object session was one on one, with students conversing in front of the whole class with their classmates listening Watch VIE Video
How did we do it? For video conferencing, we used the voice and video chat tool that is integrated into Gmail Easy to install and use. Our counterpart in Japan also installed the plug-in and after a few quick steps, we were able to start a video conversation.
How did we do it? Used Ning as a social networking site secure and easy to use in terms of navigation and organization. We then set up two groups to allow students to correspond with their counterparts in Japan. Students were sent invitations to the site Students created their postings without prior training as most of them were familiar with online social inter-action. To ensure that our students were safe online, we conducted an Internet safety workshop that was also prepared by CALM (Ed Tech department). Ning Site Demo
Student Feedback RealEnglish: authentic purpose Exciting Live Useall4skills ITskills Fun Senseofaccomplishment Differentculturenotcommon inDubai. Globally--‐minded
Student Feedback Students’ feedback from this exchange was overwhelmingly positive 93% of our students indicating that they found the exchange to be excellent over-all. 87% of the students indicated that they would recommend the site to others 80% found that it was easy to use the Google/video chat tool. Watch feedback video
Conclusion For students: Cultural Intelligence: ‘aha’ moments understanding/empathy Language development IT skills Soft skills: maturity, confidence For teachers: Fun to teach Inspiring Teaching in a multicultural vs. monocultural environment A lot to set up but very rewarding!