August 1999 issue The English Teacher magazine (Taishukan-Shoten, Japan)
"Collaboration of schools from 3 countries via Internet "
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Translation of the "Network Communications" column of The English Teachers Magazine, August 99 issue (a widely-read Japanese education publication) by Takayuki Kishimoto, Shingu High-school, Wakayama-prefecture, Japan Collaboration of schools from 3 countries via Internet "Would you like to create website together with 2 other high schools?" Our international friendship began with a e-mail from AT&T. AT&T Virtual Classroom is a wesite competition organized by AT&T, a telecommunications company in the U.S. "3 participating schools form one team and decide together their research theme. The team conducts research and investigation, and presents results in the website created by themselves." These are the only rules students have to follow. Each team will manage research plans for 6 months and build an original website. This project was accepted as an after-school extracurricular activity in our high school, and 22 students and I gathered to plan our activity. Deciding research theme with partner schools 2 partner schools for our school were easily matched through the partner-matching database provided by AT&T. Our partners were Penang Free School in Malaysia and Paxon School in the U.S. I had taught my students how to browse web sites and how to use Bulletin Board System (BBS) and search engines first, and we began our activities. After having discussion with the partner schools, we decided our theme as "Young Voices". The theme "Young Voices" aimed to research present states of various problems on the earth (such as destruction of forest, problems with drugs, sexuality, and nuclear weapons) in detail and to search for solutions from the viewpoints of young generation. Students from different countries would research together the same theme and explore individual opinions, and we eventually find difference in those opinions from Malaysia, the U.S. and Japan. " I know almost nothing about Malaysia. I want to learn many things about it." My students were really excited to start this project. Research conducted by students "Mr. Kishimoto, we have no terrorism in Japan. We canât really research about this," said one student. But, I saw this student thinking seriously when he found the website for the case of subway sarin murder in Tokyo. "What are the problems of sexuality?" Six months later, the student who asked me this question was conducting a national survey on prostitution by young girls via Internet BBS. My students worked even harder every time they received research reports from the partner schools via e-mails because they felt that they must work as hard as the partners. At the same time, the students were highly motivated and encouraged by feedback from the partner schools, and that raised the sense of partnership. Some of my students, hoping to research further, began to send e-mails to experts in various fields. Conference via CUSeeMe After completing certain portion of the research, we held real-time teleconference. The students seemed excited and nervous at the same time during the teleconferencing via CUSeeMe. They began asking in not very fluent English. "Are there any terrorism in Malaysia?" "Do you know there was a big earthquake in Kobe?" After finishing their questions, my students asked me "do you think they understood my English?" looking anxious. But, when students from the partner schools started to answer right away, they said "they understood. Great." However, my students were thrown into confusion by the partnersâ questions such as "what sort of measures have been taken by the Japanese government toward environmental issues?" and "I found out rivers in Japan are polluted by industrial wastes. Do you think those rivers are safe? Can you explain the conditions of the Japanese rivers?" They started to scream by saying "we canât explain that", and the best answers they could give were "there are many different measures", and "there arenât that much pollution in the Japanese rivers". After the teleconference, my students were quite impressed by the students from the partner schools. They said "the students from Malaysia and the U.S. were very serious and thought carefully about different issues. We need to do that here," and "it was very difficult to express my views and opinions. The students from Malaysia and the U.S. were very clear." My students were overwhelmed by the deep thoughts and powerful arguments by the partner students. On the other hand, they shared wonderful time during the cultural exchange through teleconference. When traditional dress for Malaysia was displayed, my studentsâ eyes were glued to the screen. The students from other countries talked about the strict school rules, and my students were convinced that these rules were set not only in Japan but in other countries too. One of my students, wearing a Yukata costume, played "Sakura Sakura" on the koto (stringed instrument), and she smiled charmingly when those students from partner schools said "wow, beautiful!!". After the teleconference, my students said " did they really understand about Japan?" and "it was fun to introduce my country", and I could see from their faces how satisfied they were. Overcoming language barrier A very common question I had often been asked was "didnât communicating in English become a big problem?" Of course, I must admit that we had a major disadvantage. Not only the students in the U.S, but those in Malaysia had a native level of English skill. Japanese students didnât have enough ability to write a report in English compared to the students from those 2 countries. First, I organized the translation team with students who were good at English, and they translated Japanese reports into English with dictionaries in their hands. The students came up to me with the translation saying "how should I translate `destruction of the environment`?" or "reports in English seem to say totally different things from Japanese ones". I checked and corrected their English as little as possible to the level that they were understandable, and told my students to send those reports directly to the Malaysian team. This was because the Malaysian students had offered support for translating reports since they understood English skill of the Japanese students was non-native level. I think this can be a very helpful method in any cases of the collaborative activities. I understand there are many teachers who are concerned about English ability of the students; however, if partners of the activities are native English speakers, then we should be able to get their understanding and cooperation on English ability of Japanese students. Owing to kind cooperation from the partner school, my students were able to deal with a language barrier without feeling any pressure. Higher motivation among students The students deepened their friendship via e-mails, BBS, and teleconference exchanging Christmas cards and sending e-mails to celebrate the lunar New Year. When we sent Sushi-shaped candies, the teams in the U.S. and Malaysia sent us back studentsâ notebooks from each school. My students loved the notebook in Malay. While participating this contest, I had a very strong feeling that the faces of my students were brightened with joy when they were using English as a communication tool. The students were full of vitality when they had to communicate or write in English in real situations by utilizing their vocabulary fully. After all, English will not become a tool for you if you donât use it. I was repeatedly convinced of this during this activity. My students seemed matured
when they completed this activity in February, 1999. The students
said the following during the review meeting; "I
couldnât express
what I wanted to say, and that was very frustrating. I really want
to be a fluent English speaker from the bottom of my heart."
"I felt
keenly that we had been very passive and had not been willing to actively
learn or search on our own."
"I was very
impressed by an attitude of the American and Malaysian students who
always tried seriously to make themselvesunderstood." These are the voices you canât hear from the desk studies. I canât help recognizing that itâs the power of the Internet which enables us to have this valuable experience. Our collaborative project won the grand prize in the contest. We finally met in person with students from our partner schools at the award ceremony in Hong Kong. The speech at the award ceremony, our final collaborative project, was done nicely, and the students and teachers from the 3 countries firmly shook hands with each other. Naturally, everyone was smiling. Please visit our project website, "Young Voices", at the following URL: http://202.211.227.166/vc98/e/contest/index1.html Send comments to Takayuki Kishimoto at kishi-t@rifnet.or.jp
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