Launching a solidarity campaign : technology-enhanced project-based language learning to promote entrepreneurial education and social awareness
Dooly Owenby, Melinda (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Masats i Viladoms, M. Dolors (Maria Dolors) (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Mont Algamasilla, Maria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Date:	2021
Abstract:	To promote social consciousness and a sense of responsibility, educational proposals organised around the principles of technology-enhanced project-based language learning (Dooly & Sadler,2016) should engage students in a process of reflecting upon and responding to crucial social issues. Thus, in this paper we will present a project carried out by two groups of primary students who launched a solidarity campaign to collect money for four Syrian children living in a refugee camp in Greece. The project was implemented in a cross-disciplinary Arts and Crafts class taught through English and resulted in significant outputs in English (those addressed to the Syrian children) and in Catalan (those targeted at the local community). First, we outline the student-led project and then we analyse some fragments of student plurilingual practices during the project development that demonstrate their learning gains. Our findings reveal that our meaningful contextualised cross-disciplinary project favoured the natural integration of multiple skills, competences, and field knowledge form various disciplines while promoting a sense of social consciousness and empathy. First, it enabled children to put their plurilingual competence into play and take decisions regarding language choices to meet particular communicative objectives. Second, it contributed to the acquisition of 21st century knowledge, competence, and skills, while helping the learners gain social values. Third, it engaged learners in processes of problem solving, decision making and creative thinking that lead to the development of entrepreneurial competencies. To conclude we argue that when young learners are given responsibilities and opportunities to take up socially relevant challenges learning becomes meaningful for them and those around them.
Grants:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2015/ARMIF00010 "la Caixa" Foundation 2016ACUP-001 "la Caixa" Foundation LCF/PR/RC16/10100003
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	21st century skills ; Cross-disciplinary learning approach ; Integrated learning ; English as a foreign language ; Primary education ; Conversational analysis
Published in:	Journal of Technology and Science Education, Vol. 11 Núm. 2 (2021) , p. 260-269, ISSN 2013-6374

DOI: 10.3926/jotse.1224

10 p, 538.3 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Research group for Education, Interaction and plurilingualism (GREIP)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles