Tag Archive for: #ASSESS

Communicative skill in English language

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One of the most difficult parts of a foreign language is the pronunciation and at the same time is an essential part due to the fact that the pronunciation of a language is the basis of communication. 

English is a worldwide language that is taught in every part of the world, it is recognized as an official language in a total of 67 countries. The best age to start learning a new language is as soon as possible. Toddlers assimilate languages easier than teenagers and adults, they learn from what they hear and imitate sounds. This is the reason why the teaching of languages at schools must start soon and focus on speaking first. 

To improve the acquisition of the communicative skill of a language it is important to teach the speaking and interaction part during all the school years of the children. During primary school, children learn to produce simple sentences and they acquire new vocabulary to use it logically. 

The ASSESS project gives importance to speaking skill. Teachers have more than 100 speaking exams divided into 24 topics to use in level A1 and A2. Moreover, they also have a great variety of flashcards that can be used for teaching speaking.This material can be downloaded from our Online Exam Creator Platform. 

Learning a Foreign Language through Language Learning Apps

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Mobile apps have been changing the way we communicate, shop, work, learn and entertain ourselves. Especially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic their influence in our lives have been multiplied: We use communication and team-work apps for remote work almost everyday; we can do our grocery shopping through our mobile phones without going to the “crowded” supermarkets; we can practice our “daily workout” from home; and we can develop our knowledge and skills on various subjects, including a foregin language, while sitting on our sofa. 

Indeed, language learning apps appear to be one of the most popular apps today; but how effective are they in making the learner gain necessary skills to understand, write and communicate in a foreign language? According to a research conducted by Shawn Loewen, a professor of second language studies, the apps are helpful in learning the basics of a language, but it remains to be difficult to use what is learnt in real life: “If you teach people explicitly to memorize vocabulary and grammar rules, most people will learn that. (…) But it’s much harder to take that knowledge and translate it into the ability to use language — to speak it, understand what you’re hearing, and respond in an appropriate way” [Read More].

Considering their user-friendliness and impact to a certain extent, such apps and other digital solutions can also be used as complementary tools in traditional language training and education at schools. In our project, ASSESS, we have been developing a tool as such, the Online Exam Creator (OEC), which aims at supporting EFL teachers with a pool of various teaching and assessment materials. The OEC tool is expected to be finalized by the end of 2021. Follow our website for more information.

A new way of creating exams, ASSESS project

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During the days 25 and 26 of November, the partners of the Erasmus+ project ASSESS met in Izmir, Turkey to advance in the future activities of the project. The project ASSESS has as its main objective the innovation in the assessment of the subject English through an Online Exam Creator.

This second transnational meeting, hosted by Nicea (Turkey) was focused on the platform “Online Exam Creator”.

The partners AEPC (Portugal), Learnmera Oy (Finland), Action Synergy (Greece), EMG (Germany) and Inercia Digital (Spain) decided changes to do in the structure of the platform, which is created by Inercia Digital. This platform is the main result of the project and will be presented to English teachers in Greece in December, where the learning activity for teachers will be hosted by Action Synergy.

The platform is divided into 4 parts:

  1. Ready-Made Exams: ready exams for downloading and printing. Teachers can find A1, A2 exams inside a huge range of 26 topics (Animals, countries, family, nature, toys…)
  2. Material Bank: In this section teachers can find flashcards, images, colouring pages and worksheets of the different topics.
  3. Exam Creator: Teachers can create their own exam and download it at the moment using this tool. 
  4. Tools: In the last sections, useful tools for creation of exams or worksheets are shared. 

Next 14, 15 and 16 of December, a training course for English teachers will be held in Athens, Greece. Teachers will learn different ways of assessment and will learn to use this platform.