Outcomes of the Project

PARTICIPANTS' SURVEYS

In the surveys, our participants have stated that they

1. have learnt from good practices abroad and started implementing them at our Self-Access Centre, 
2.  improved their career and employment opportunities,
3. improved their practical skills such as planning and organising, project management, etc., organisational/management/leadership skills and teamwork abilities,
4. shared their own knowledge and skills with learners and peers,
5. built up new contacts, expanded their professional network, enhanced the intercultural interaction with their European counterparts and raised their cultural awareness (As a result, in the long term, these participants are expected to generate ideas about the Strategic Partnership projects and carry out those projects with their European counterparts.),
6. become better aware of European funding mechanisms for projects in their field of education and training, 
7. believe that their participation in Erasmus+ had or will have the following impact on their sending institution: 

          a) Creating opportunities for the launch or development of new educational activities such as curriculum development, development of joint courses or modules, academic networks, etc.,

          b) Reinforcing a positive attitude of my sending institution towards sending more staff on teaching assignments, job shadowing or training abroad,

          c) Strengthening the cooperation with the partner organisations in this project,

          d) Strengthening my sending institution's efforts to internationalise its activities,

          e) Starting or joining new European/international projects

In addition, our participants have stated that they have enhanced their competences, gained new perspectives and have been more enthusiastic and motivated about learning and teaching thanks to the unparalleled experience in a European context. 

BEST PRACTICES

Before the project started, our participants were expected to implement the best practices learnt as result of this job-shadowing activity. Yasemin, who went to the Language Reosurce Center of Newcastle University, learnt about a very good practice implemented at the Centre. The practice was the “Online Tandem Speaking Project”, which they carried out with a Spanish University. After we did our job shadowing activities, Yasemin and I had a meeting as to which best practices we could implement and decided to initiate the same project at our school. In order to achieve this aim, I contacted Dr. Kübra Yıldırım Khan, whose Turkish classes I observed at the Language Centre of Cambridge University. 

I asked her whether she and her students would like to colloborate with us for this particular project. She kindly accepted our request and she suggested that we should pair up our students with her students doing Turkish courses at London Yunus Emre Institute as there could be far more participants willing to take part in the project. We are grateful to Dr. Yıldırım Khan as she has helped us  a lot to find suitable partners for our students to be able to do the online tandem speaking exchange. 


Online Tandem Speaking Project

In April 2018, Metu SAC initiated a “Online Tandem Speaking Project” in collaboration with London Yunus Emre Institute in order to give both groups of students alike the opportunity to practice their L2 with native speakers. The program was to a certain number of students as we wanted to pilot the project.  For the program to succeed and continue, certain rules were applied. 

The participants were:

1. 19 Adult Students, who are learning Turkish at London Yunus Emre Institute
2. 28 Students, who are learning English at METU School of Foreign Languages: 

• 6 Adult students who are attending our English Certificate courses (since this is an Erasmus+ Adult Education project)
• 12 Prep class students
• 5 members of METU Staff, who are attending our English courses
• 5 other Adult students studying English  (since this is an Erasmus+ Adult Education project)

Until now, we have had 24 pairs who participated in this project. Some more participants are on the waiting list to be able to do tandem speaking.

Stages of the Project:

1. We sent two Google Form links to students who would like to participate in the project: one for Yunus Emre Institute students and one for METU students. In these forms, the participants
2. We paired up the students from each organization according to the responses that they gave to the questions on the Google Form link (age, interests and gender preferences, etc). 
3. We sent both partners an e-mail stating the rules and our expectations. 

In the e-mail we sent possible topics that they can talk about during the exchange: 

Also, we sent them e-Tandem session sheet, which will guide them throughout the exchange:

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3. Then, they started doing the online tandem speaking exchange through WhatsApp or Skype.

4. From time to time, we got feedback from the participants. Most participants have been really happy about this Online Tandem project. They have stated that they we would like to go on doing the online tandem speaking and the exchanges have been so fruitful. We are glad that they have made close friends with their partners and they are satisfied with the outcomes of the project.

Initially, we were expecting a few students to take part in this speaking project. However, there have been far more participants than we expected. Even some more participants on the waiting list to be able to do tandem speaking. Therefore, we would like to continue this project in order for more students to be able to benefit from the speaking exchange.

Workhops About Tandem Speaking 

As this project was limited to a small number of participants, we wanted to reach a wider number of students. for this reason, we offered workshops about a mobile phone application called "Tandem", through which they can find online tandem speaking partners for themselves. Here is a workshop poster that we prepared: 

And this is a picture taken during the workshop: 

As we have received very positive feeback from the participants, we believe that by initiating such a “Tandem Project”, we have provided our students with opportunities not only to practice their L2 skills but the invaluable chance to experience cultural diversity.