Tag Archive for: #Erasmus+

Multiplier Events – Erasmus+ Project KA201 “ASSESS-Assessing EFL students”

After almost 3 years of partnership, the consortium of the “ASSESS-Assessing EFL students” project is in the final stage of
the work with the pilot phase underway and the realization of several Multiplier Events to disseminate the project and
the outputs.


In Portugal, Agrupamento de Escolas de Penalva do Castelo held the Multiplier Event on June 2 at Espaço de Juventude do
Fontelo, in Viseu, with the participation of several English teachers.
The main output of this project was the creation of a platform to support English teachers in the assessment process. In
addition to providing various materials and exams covering all communicative skills, the Online Exam Creator platform
features an exam generator and other tools for creating fun activities.

To provide leadership, direction, and assistance to governments, educational institutions, and individuals across the world in order to promote excellence in language education, there are some non-profit organisations now, giving certificate about a world level standard of language teaching if your organisation can meet the necessary criteria. 

These organisations like “Eaquals” and “Pearson” aim to provide language education providers with accreditation based on some requirements, develop practical materials for people working in the field of modern languages, as well as provide training and assistance.

On Language Learning for European Citizenship, above mentioned organisations aim to improve mutual knowledge and understanding, increase the quantity and quality of international cooperation, and combat prejudice and intolerance toward people of different languages and cultures.

Day by day, these organisations are growing to become professional organisations for language instruction in more and more countries including Turkey with a dozen of instutions, private or state schools, universities and so on.

In order to be one of these accredited members, the appying institution has to meet some requirements which are delivered after the application process. In a pre-determined time period, your institution is expected to fit in to certain standards of language education. The applying institution gets an advisory visit before the main inspection to assist the process. These aforesaid criteria are concerned with administrative and management quality assurance, the quality of learning environment, student and staff services and academic quality (including teaching and assessment processes)

In case of being entitled to the certificate, your institution and your students are regarded to have a higher standard of language education worldwide. 

To be able to catch the zeitgeist, and to minimize the unexpected drawbacks of a non-centralized and more subjective methods of teaching and assessment, these organizations offer a more adaptable approach of language education to civil rights and one that respects more on equal opportunity for each student of your institution.

Here are the links for these organizations:

https://www.eaquals.org/

https://tr.pearson.com/tr/yuksek-ogrenim/yetkinlikler-gelisim/pearson-akreditasyonu.html

Learning a Foreign Language through Language Learning Apps

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.

The Benefits and Outcomes of Online Learning

Online education has been an issue since the internet started to become a crucial part of our lives. However, the outbreak of the virus forced this concept in our lives as an obligatory situation. 

All the nations throughout the world have been talking about it, yet no country was prepared for it thoroughly. The citizens of the world have learnt the “how to” part on the way. We managed to do it somehow, but what about the efficiency and the effect of online education and assessment?

As an instructor at a state university in Turkey, my experience has been quite positive in many ways which can be listed as below;

*Flexibility and Self-Paced Learning

      The difference among students in terms of learning pace has been vanished as all our lessons had been recorded and uploaded to the system beforehand. So, each student can go online and find the related video on the system and revise afterwards or prepare before the class hour at any time s/he is available.

*Better Time Management

     As an instructor, I could easily complain that most of the time, the class hour was interrupted by natural conversations; however, in online lessons 40 minutes were mostly used very effectively and all the talking was to the point. In time both teachers and students have learnt to use all the benefits of online meetings like break-out rooms, white board, multi-user screen sharing, annotation, etc. which enabled both parties to make use of the allocated time better.

*Varied Means of Learning

      In our online education experience, we experienced many different means which are called “web tools” used for educational purposes. We applied online quizzes for fun, software versions of the books and online workbooks that can be used like popular applications (in vocabulary and grammar especially), competitions and games that can facilitate learning in grammar and so on.

*Keeping up with the Developing Technology

      All the improvements in technology like applications, tutorials on Youtube, audiobooks, interactive games have made education seem like behind the zeitgeist. With an obligatory push, education especially in eastern countries had to keep up with developing technology which created a more appealing interface for education. We are free from getting old and rusty.

At the end of the semester, according to a survey held in Uludağ University (Bursa, Turkey), almost 80 percent of both teachers and students favour and stick up for online education for the above mentioned reasons. And with the data collected from that research, the School of Foreign Languages plans to carry out the education both face-to-face and online in the 2021-2022 academic year.

ASSESS – BLOG / JANUARY 2021

With 2021 finally here, we wanted to take a moment and share a few thoughts concerning the assessment of the productive skills (speaking and writing). This is a quite complex task.

There are so many traits and competences that can be assessed: fluency, accuracy, complexity of language, vocabulary richness and/or range, acquisition of specific vocabulary, language chunks or grammar structures, content/ideas and details provided, sequencing or organization of ideas… and, how to measure all these traits/competences? How wide should each trait be for L1 or L2 learners at different stages of proficiency? Should we prioritize competences in the assessment of learner proficiency or should they all be weighted in the same way? What type of tasks should be used to assess learners’ speaking and writing proficiency? How often should productive skills be assessed?

The answers to all these questions are essential to the development of any effective approach to the assessment of proficiency in the productive skills. However, with so many approaches that exist, teachers often feel confused and frustrated when it comes to evaluate English Foreign Language Learners and create effective and valid rating scales. 

Taking into account teachers’ difficulties and needs, the project ASSESS aims to define innovative methods and tools for the assessment of EFL learners. On the basis of approaches that already exist, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), a range of information sources and data that was collected and analysed through questionnaires addressed to teachers, the project ASSESS will provide a handbook to suggest a usable scale construction model for application or adaptation in assessing speaking and writing exams, easily and in a reliable way. The objective is to contribute to the improvement of teachers’ skills in preparing reliable rating scales, allowing them to give a trait specific feedback according to different levels of achievement. Providing constructive feedback on speaking and writing (strengths and needs) is essential for helping students improve their skills.

In addition, in the web portal, speaking and writing exams will be complemented with an example of assessment scale ready to use or adapt.

We founded ASSESS project to help teachers find innovative tools for assessing English Foreign Language Learners. Our mission is being realized. We are eager to bring inspiration and innovation to foster good practices and facilitate the evaluation process.

“ASSESS” Project-ASSESSING EFL STUDENTS EVALUATION-ASSESSEMENT HANDBOOK & LEΑRNING TOOLKIT

The project ASSESS aims to define innovative methods and tools for the assessment of EFL learners and to bring new approaches to this procedure in European countries. 

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One of the major outputs of this project is the development of a practical Handbook for Evaluation and Assessment Methods for speaking and writing skills. The output’s aim is to help English teachers to improve their professional skills on preparing rating scales for their exams. The Handbook will be ready by the end of November. 

Moreover, as we are adapting to a new reality due to the pandemic of Covid-19, remote learning is becoming a necessity due to closure of schools during lockdown periods. Digital technologies and distance teaching and learning have become popular educational tools and methods.

To facilitate the learning & teaching process during these unprecedented circumstances we decided to adapt and upload the materials prepared by the ASSESS partners on the LEΑRNING TOOLKIT: Action Synergy’s eLearning platform. More specifically, numerous exams/exercises (vocabulary, reading, writing, listening & speaking) prepared by the ASSESS partnership for A1 & A2 Level EFL Students are now available on https://actionelearning.eu. The chapters covered include:  the weather, shopping, sports, my city/town. The students have the option to read the text or to listen to the audio before completing the exams/exercises that include “fill in the gaps”, “click & drag”, “true or false” open type answers, etc.

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Database for the Online Exam Creator nearing completion

Our Assess project is steaming ahead regardless of CoVid-19 restrictions. The partners from Portugal, Turkey, Finland, Greece, Germany and Spain have each completed 200 exams involving vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, a total of 1200 exams. The exercises were built on specific vocabulary and the listening exams will, this autumn be recorded into audio files for the project. The voiceover talents of Megan and Luke Britton, native Brits, will be used for the recordings. The Finnish partner’s audio files have already been completed and the other partner’s files are being prepared. This will then see the completion of the exams for the Intellectual Output 2: Database for the Online Exam Creator.


Our dissemination efforts are expanding and the Assess Facebook page now has 118 likes. The partners will continue adding more interesting items to the Facebook Page to keep it lively and engaging.

The new normality with ASSESS

The new normality after COVID-19 is changing our day-to-day. The way in which we do the shopping, we go to a restaurant or we meet someone is different. In the same way, the way of teaching in schools will be different. To bring in a new way of teaching you need tools, methodologies and adaptability. This need for change in the classroom shows us that that changes are possible and necessary.

English is one of the most important languages due to the number of English speaking people and to its use in the professional world. Because of its importance, it is studied compulsory from the beginning of a student’s education. To get a successful learning of English, students must learn all the skills necessary: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

ASSESS project has the main objective of introducing a change in the evaluation of English as Foreign Language in General Education. To facilitate teachers the correct evaluation of communicatives skills, which are speaking and listening skills. Therefore, the partnership is working in the development of the platform, Online Exam Creator, which will be an useful tool for teachers that will allow them a new way of evaluating the foreign language in students.

In spite of the uncertainty about the opening of schools and universities or the new way of teaching in each country. The most important is that students continue improving their educational life and their learning is not damaged. Because of this, from Inercia Digital we continue teleworking in our Erasmus + projects will all our partners in order to keep them functioning and to improve the quality of European education.

We continue progressing in ASSessing EFL Students project

Last 30th of June we participated in the 4th online meeting of the project #ASSESS to talk about the completion of the first report of the project. We continue working and shaping our objective: the Online Exam Creator 📚💡👩🏽‍💻

ASSESSING EFL STUDENTS

  What is ASSESS Project?

The project ASSESS is a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, as a Strategic Partnership for the Development of Innovation in School Education. It aims to define innovative methods and tools for the assessment of EFL learners. Its main goal is to bring new approaches to assessment and contribute to development of evaluation consciousness. It also wants to support restoration of assessment system and share good practices among European countries.

With ASSESS, all the partners will have a chance to promote the specific skills acquisition and skills enhancement for foreign language teachers for:

1) effective teaching and evaluation methods of foreign languages in particular through the use of ICT

2) choice of quality products in language assessment, identifying the best meet the specific educational needs

3) use of products available either as an alternative or as an integration of traditional methodologies

4) creation from scratch of educational and training products that exploit the potential of new technologies

            What are we going to develop?

Intellectual Output 1: Report on Curriculum,

Intellectual Output 2: Database for Online Exam Online Creator

Intellectual Output 3: Rating Scale

Intellectual Output 4: Online Exam Creator

Intellectual Output 5: Teachers’ Guidebook