engleski

The "Teddy Bear" Project – Developing Intercultural Communication Competence through eTwinning

Learning English as a foreign language early in life is almost impossible to escape in this day and age of advanced technology and globalization, especially if an individual aspires to achieve academic and professional success. Due to the constant rise of English language usage around the world, children have to learn the basics of the foreign language and acquire elementary competences early in life in order to be prepared for potential future challenges. To improve the existing curriculum, the importance of developing intercultural competence even in early foreign language learning was emphasized by the Ministry of Science and Education in Croatia. Studies have found that young learners unquestionably benefit from being exposed to cultural diversity and that it enables them to develop necessary competences like empathy, understanding differences and accepting other cultures. Through the modernization of the education system, teachers have found numerous advantages of technology- assisted learning. As a result, the eTwinning platform has slowly gained popularity by combining all beneficial assets for learning through active participation in international projects. The aim of this thesis is to describe one of many projects that were initiated owing to the above- mentioned platform and to establish positive and negative aspects of its implementation in primary classroom teaching. The project took part in two countries, Croatia and the Netherlands, and included students aged 9 to 11. The project was also carried out as a potential research on importance of developing pupils’ digital competences and intercultural communication competences in relation to foreign language learning, in this case, English. Consulting numerous studies conducted during several decades of global English as foreign language learning, the thesis confirms predominantly positive outcomes of implementing similar projects into regular lessons or extracurricular activities.

eTwinning, curriculum, intercultural competence, project, foreign language

Diplomski rad nastao kao dio međunarodne eTwinning TTI inicijative