The British Studies Webpages, the Countryside and the Starbienino
Summer School 2001 From July 6th to
15th, 34 participants, mostly from Poland but also the Czech Republic, Slovenia
and the UK, met to work interculturally in Starbienino, near Gdynia, Poland.
The aim was to produce an issue of the British Studies Webpages on the theme of
The Countryside and what you will find when you visit http://elt.britcoun.org.pl is the product of their commitment
and hard work. The countryside
was chosen as it is a theme very much in the news in both the UK, the foot and
mouth crisis causing the 2001 general election to be postponed, and Poland with
projected entry to the EU and rural unemployment strong emotional issues. However
it is one which is not dealt with much in language coursebooks or British
Studies textbooks. It was intentionally an experimental
summer school. The underlying belief was that teachers are capable of producing
materials of publishable quality if they are given the confidence and the
support, and the pages themselves can be visited to judge the success of this.
The approach was different to many other courses in that it was accepted from
the beginning that it would be a community of trainers and participants working
together towards common goals. These goals were: §
to set up a model of a course that would be sustainable in future years. §
to be international to take full advantage of the potential of an
intercultural approach. §
to take an approach to culture measured by what can be done as much as
what is known. §
to have investigative attitudes - via the internet, original sources and
the immediate area - to learn how to explore, evaluate and make practical use
of what was found in a classroom context. §
to take an ‘holistic’ approach with the aim of involving the
participants own knowledge and experience, the venue itself (a Kaszubian
cultural, educational and ecological centre), and the surrounding countryside.
This emphasis will be apparent when you visit the site. §
for participants and trainers to work alongside one another - the
trainers providing experience in methodology, the theme and ICT skills but
equally expecting to develop their own skills and knowledge, and make
contributions to the pages. §
to produce webpages good enough for publication and classroom use. The first part of
the summer school had two emphases. An investigation of the UK countryside in
the form of possible activities to be taken into the classroom (where possible
done through the use of original materials or by searching the internet) and
with an emphasis on developing cultural awareness and skills using an
intercultural methodology. In addition ICT skills were developed according to
the level of the participants and with a view to the skills needed for the
production of the webpages. In the second the
participants divided themselves into groups to prepare materials on a theme of
their choice and some participants with more advanced ICT skills had the
opportunity to develop webpage design skills themselves. There were a variety
of evening activities including a quiz, a barbecue, films and a walk to a
nearby village while the centre itself had bikes for hire and the seaside could
be reached in half an hour. Nearer to the centre was a lake and the opportunity
for swimming. There was of
course editing, and coding of the participant’s work in html, after the summer
school but broadly what you see is what was achieved by the participants and
the trainers during that time. The product is what you see but the real value
for the participants lay in the process of their production. Although a great
deal has been learned about how to run it in a more effective way next year it
was regarded as a success by the participants involved. When you visit
this site you will find:
Many features have
activities connected to the materials to enable them to be made use of by
teachers. Further activities on how to bring culture into the classroom will be
found in the newly-developed Teacher's
Forum also on the website. More sections on
the countryside have yet to be added while those presently there will be
revised, in part depending on the response of our readers. We very much hope to
organise another international summer school next year along these lines, so if
you are interested, watch out for information on this website.
|
