2. 2
WHAT IS SKYPALS?
Skypals is a project I developed during my teaching practice as part of the Master's
degree programme in Teacher Training for Secondary Education at the Universitat
Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, to encourage students from a school in Barcelona to speak
English using of Skype.
WHY THE NAME?
It combines the words Skype and Pen-pals:
- it uses Skype as the main ICT tool;
- it can be seen as the digital-age version of pen pals.
HOW DOES SKYPALS WORK?
Students from one country are put in touch with students from another country, over
Skype. The students are organised into groups and each group is given a topic to prepare
and discuss, in their learner language, with their corresponding group abroad.
It may be used by students of any level of learning, to carry out language and cultural
exchanges, as long as there is sufficient and coherent preparatory work done before and
during the project.
WHAT IS THE AIM OF SKYPALS?
General Objective
The main objective of the project was to motivate students to speak English, through the
use of a commonly used ICT tool which is Skype, by placing the students in authentic
and meaningful communication with native-English speakers.
Determining factors of successful language production are
- the existence of a problem to solve/a necessity: wanting to speak to students
from the British school abroad,
- the motivation to do so: wanting to look good while doing so
In the case at hand, the English-learning students in Barcelona were put in touch with
native English-speakers studying Castilian. This lead to a bi-lingual exchange.
Specific Objectives
To give value to the task
To get students to give value to the task, in order to increase their level of interest and
motivation, and hence their learning and their learner satisfaction. The fact of being
face-to-face with their Skypals gives them no choice but to engage.
To increase self-esteem and self-concept
To increase students’ self-esteem and self-concept, by giving them the opportunity to
experience speaking with native-speakers their age, and showing them that they can be
effective in relaying their message and understanding that of the native-speakers.
To use own learner strategies and communicative skills
To spur students to make use of their learner strategies, personal knowledge and
communicative skills to overcome potential language barriers during communication.
3. 3
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT
The Students
Each student was in possession of a laptop to use during the preparatory stages.
The students presented various levels of knowledge and interest in the subject, however
they worked well as a group, and had a good attitude towards group work and helping
each other.
The Steps
Lessons 1 – 4 were dedicated to preparing the students for the first connection over
Skype (Skypals1), which was to be held in lesson 5.
During these lessons, I carried out various activities that helped students understand the
purpose of the project and what was expected of them, to acquire the necessary
vocabulary and grammar needed, as well as the more technical colloquial requirements
for conversing with people on a specific subject.
To give the students a clear purpose to the communication moments, it was arranged to
group the students and have each group prepare a set of questions they would ask their
corresponding group.
Skypals1 (Lesson 5) was the first connection day. To allow each set of students to
practice their learner language, the Skype communications were divided into “the
Spanish moment” and “the English moment”, where only the relevant language was
used by all at any one time. It lasted approximately 50 minutes.
Lessons 6 and 7 were dedicated to preparing the answers to the questions the students
had been asked during Skypas1, introducing further vocabulary and grammar points and
practicing resuming conversations.
Skypals2 (in Lesson 8) was the second Skype connection, again divided into “the
Spanish moment” and “the English moment”. It lasted almost an hour and after having
answered each other’s questions, the groups went into free speech and as well as into
exchanging groups.
Lessons 9 and 10 were for consolidation, rounding-up and oral group presentations.
Extras
I provided the students with props to use during the connections. These were welcomed
by the students who used them to refer to during the preparation of their documents, as
well as during Skypals1 and Skypals2.
I also posted videos of Skypas1 and Skypals2 on the Google Drive I had set up for the
project, so students could view themselves in their own time. This gave them autonomy
in their learning and empowered them to activate their learning skills.
The design of the project took into account student developmental stage and accounted
for individual differences and different learning styles.
4. 4
RATIONALE BEHIND SKYPALS
Of all the skills taught in the English classroom in Catalonia, spoken English is, from
my observation, the least developed.
Although Skypals is a project which focuses specifically on spoken English in authentic
communicative situations, but may be adapted to many different educational situations.
WHAT ARE SKYPALS’ APPLICATIONS IN EDUCATION?
It is an easy and direct form of creating authentic communicative situations to motivate
students to use their learner language with native speakers, as well as to promote
cultural exchange and intercultural relationships.
It can be used by language teachers, or other subject teachers, to:
- Incorporate ICT tools in their teaching, in order to move towards ICT fluency:
- Stimulate students to use their learner language in real communicative
situations, in a fresh and stimulating way, with no extra cost to the school;
- Increase student interest in multiculturalism and in what lies beyond the
classroom;
- Comply with the requirements of the ESO Curriculum (DECRET 143/2007) on
competencies, such as the communicative competence, the multilingual and
intercultural, the self-reliance, and the social and civic one.
- Comply with the Council of Europe’s multilingualism goal, where European
languages are seen as an asset to be preserved and promoted, as a way of
guaranteeing social rights and promoting the socio-cultural dimension of
Europe, open-mindedness, cultural communication and democratic access to
knowledge.
CONCLUSIONS
STUDENT FINDINGS
From students’ feedback I was able to assess whether it had been effective in its purpose
of motivating them to speak English.
From the final presentations the students did in class, most students said that they had
greatly enjoyed speaking with their Skypals and the project in general. Their enthusiasm
was evident and their confidence had considerably increased.
The questionnaire I set them at the beginning and end of the unit confirmed these
findings.
MY FINDINGS
With regards to the objectives:
1. Being in an authentic communicative situation leads students to speak in
English.
2. With regards to task-value and learner satisfaction, all students enjoyed speaking
in English.
3. With regards to self-esteem and on students’ idea of possible selves, I registered
a relatively high success rate.
4. The greatest amount of spoken English (both in terms of number of students
speaking and in terms of amount per student) occurred in the two Skypals
sessions, when the students were motivated and were using the ICT tool to their
heart’s content!
5. 5
Adapt it
The format of the project could be replicated, where the number of hours could be
modified. Different topics could be introduced and it could actually be considered for
cross-curricular activities: a science or an economics project with a foreign school, in
English. The students could be of different age groups, the grouping could be same-
level or mixed-level, and the moments of connection more numerous. It all depends on
the level of the students and on the possibilities and requirements of who is
implementing it.
The school needs to be prepared for disruptions in its daily routine, as the coordination
of timetables between the schools may be complicated.
To make it easier to find schools abroad willing to participate in a similar project, the
school may sign up to the e-twinning platform
(http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm) promoted by the EU.
Afterthoughts
The implementation of the project was long and complicated. The logistics and
management required time and attention. However, during Skypals1 and Skypals2, my
direct involvement was minor: the students were doing all the work. The project has
shown that it is essential for teachers to search for ways of stimulating learner interest
and motivation, through attention to individual differences and coherent class
management. In particular, with regards to the speaking skill, it needs authentic
communicative situations for spontaneous and engaged speaking to occur, which in
Skypals was provided for by using Skype.
