1. eLanguages creative collaboration for teachers globally

2. What is eLanguages? An online collaborative tool for teachers globally, developed by the British Council and Rages Ltd for the Department for Education and Skills Multilingual (English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Japanese, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati and Hindi versions) Free at the point of use Enables teachers to create and/or use collaborative resource-based projects Offers each project 100 MB of space

3. clear layout multiple languages structured projects hello pages project / resource categories

4. What are the benefits? Students … Teachers … Present their work to the world Learn from authentic resources Connect with and learn from peers Become global citizens Cultural awareness Language skills ICT skills Collaborate and create school links Access and use authentic resources Involve their students Feel confident and in control International dimension Student-centred learning Professional development

5. Why use eLanguages for school linking? It is a site specifically designed for school use Only verified teachers are allowed to have an account for creating and editing pages As account holders become trusted, they are given a higher level of admin rights than they would do on similar sites Teachers are able to ensure that the site is 100% safe for students to use The site has a wide variety of tools under one roof. So, there is no need to learn the environments of a number of sites that only have one or two useful tools each It has an effective search tool enabling teachers and students to quickly find the resource they need, rather than having to drill down a number of links Most significantly, the site’s navigation tools and wizards are translated into the user’s native language making training much simpler

6. How does it work? 1 re-use existing resources collaborate on a project and create resources find a partner teacher or join a project 2 teacher How can I internationalise my classroom activities class

7. Browse or re-use resources … for example Spanish resources, presentations, audio files, text files… no membership is required click to open

8. Join existing projects … find an interesting project, and join the project to create a school link and collaborate with a partner

9. Start your own project … create your own project idea and invite others to join your project

10. Student contributions Create forums to enable students to quickly and simply communicate a message without requiring an account Use forums to enable students to read and compare the answers of a variety of students at another school without the need for email accounts

11. Example 1: What does that mean project One form is required to start a new project

12. First we ask the teachers to define project stages… 1 2 3 4 5

13. A comprehensive range of resources can be added to the project stages (movies, sound files, pictures, galleries, text, polls, web links) Resources are added to the project page by teachers, but can be created or sourced by either teachers or students

14. eLanguages project page The complete project, with resources added to each stage

15. Example 2: From our own correspondent

16. User feedback

17. “It’s brilliant. I’ve been looking for a set of web tools for school links for the last two years. Even better, the instructions on how to use it are in the native language of the user. This means that the schools in Ariège I am currently working with will easily be able to put up pages with a minimum of training.” Alex Savage, Advanced Skills Teacher, Norfolk

18. “Through my studies I have come across a large number of platforms recently, and what I have learned about eLanguages in the workshop makes it the best online platform I have seen so far.” Sabine Huber, Munich Germany about to complete her doctoral dissertation on the use of eLearning in English Language Teaching

19. “The eLanguages workshops were absolutely stunning. They certainly exceeded all my expectations. I had hoped to enjoy the visit but it has gone far beyond that. It has given me enthusiasm and I can’t wait to continue and do more projects.” Mary Rick, Class Teacher Bonington Junior School

20. Contacts For further information please contact: Your local British Council office or contact: http://www.britishcouncil.org/home-contact-worldwide.htm The eLanguages team: Neil Shaw: neil.shaw@britishcouncil.orgneil.shaw@britishcouncil.org Ralph Genang: r.genang@rages.co.ukr.genang@rages.co.uk Or visit the eLanguages website: www.elanguages.org www.elanguages.org