Una experiencia en el uso de las tic en la educación universitaria

Esta ponencia explica el uso que se ha hecho de dos utilidades de la herramienta de educación bimodal Campus Virtual de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona para llevar a cabo la tutoría integrada de varias asignaturas de la titulación de Filología Inglesa. De les diferentes modalidades de tutoría integrada (créditos que no corresponden a horas de presencia en el aula sino a horas de trabajo de los alumnos), aquí se han seleccionado dos: la corrección de trabajos escritos y la discusión de distintos temas. Las utilidades del Campus Virtual usadas son las siguientes: el Lliurament d'arxius (entrega de archivos) (en que todo el mecanismo de asignación, elaboración y corrección de trabajos se hace virtualmente), y el Forum (un espacio de discusión abierto a todos los alumnos de la asignatura).Eje: Educación universitaria: Experiencias uso NTICRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Una experiencia en el uso de las tic en la educación universitaria

Esta ponencia explica el uso que se ha hecho de dos utilidades de la herramienta de educación bimodal Campus Virtual de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona para llevar a cabo la tutoría integrada de varias asignaturas de la titulación de Filología Inglesa. De les diferentes modalidades de tutoría integrada (créditos que no corresponden a horas de presencia en el aula sino a horas de trabajo de los alumnos), aquí se han seleccionado dos: la corrección de trabajos escritos y la discusión de distintos temas. Las utilidades del Campus Virtual usadas son las siguientes: el Lliurament d'arxius (entrega de archivos) (en que todo el mecanismo de asignación, elaboración y corrección de trabajos se hace virtualmente), y el Forum (un espacio de discusión abierto a todos los alumnos de la asignatura).Eje: Educación universitaria: Experiencias uso NTICRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Teaching Academic reading with an App

StratApp is a project within KA2 Erasmus+, whose aim is to improve the English academic reading skills of university students by means of a game-based app accessible through mobile technology or web. The app will combine the obvious educational purpose with game-design elements and game principles. The first discipline to be included will be education. The first phase of the project, already completed, involved identifying the reading skills and strategies improvable by means of an app: word recognition, skimming, scanning, recognizing discourse structure and genre, and fluency (Grabe 2009, Nation 2009). The second phase, currently underway, consists in the pedagogical design of the app, i.e., devising the various activities useful to improve each of these skills and strategies. In this presentation, we will focus on activities to raise the app's users' awareness of the generic and discourse characteristics of academic texts (Biber and Douglas 2009, Biber 2012). We will show how we intend to have L2 learners approach academic text reading, taking into account that such texts belong to a specific genre completely different to that of texts used in general English classes, namely, informative texts and fiction (Fernández-Toledo 2005). Among the most important skills that students need to master are noticing lexical cohesion, identifying the antecedents of pronouns and demonstratives, distinguishing the main ideas from supporting detail, and identifying rhetorical patterns and heavy NPs. Hence, a corpus of academic papers from the most relevant journals of education (such as Review of Educational Research or Research in Higher Education) will be compiled (Aijmer 2009). The specific manifestation of the aspects mentioned above will be taken as the basis for the actual form and content of the activities, and we will discuss the relevance of editing a representative corpus in order to build up a progression in the target language activity

Reading academic texts : gamification

Reading academic texts is a skill which is as difficult as necessary for university students. It has been seen (Dhieb-Henia 2003, Hellekjær 2009, Nergis 2013) that even when students have an acceptable level of English, they still encounter difficulties when dealing with academic texts. According to the First European Survey on Language Competences (2011: 42), the percentage of secondary students having achieved at least a B1 CEFR in general English reading is quite low in a number of European countries (France 13%, Spain 24%, Poland 24%). In 2016, a group of researchers from these three countries were awarded a KA2 grant (Erasmus+) for their joint project Gamifying Academic English Skills in Higher Education: Reading Academic English App (StratApp). The project started in December 2016 and will be completed in September 2019. The universities involved in the project are Universitat Rovira i Virgili (leader), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (France) and Wyzsza Szola Lingwistyczna (Poland), together with a app-developing company in Poland and the Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya. The aim of this project is to improve the English academic reading skills of university students, in various disciplines (to go from an A2 to a B2 CEFR level), through a game-based app that can be accessed through mobile technology or web. In order to make the app more attractive, it will combine the obvious educational purpose (improvement of academic skills) with game-design elements and game principles. The project is divided into five phases (intellectual outputs): 1) identification of reading skills and strategies; 2) pedagogical design of the app; 3) elaboration of the teacher's manual and online guide book; 4) development of the app for Android; 5) creation of the app Content Management System (CSM) and exploitation database. Different partners are responsible for the various phases. In this presentation we will explain the outcome of the first intellectual output, that is, a list of reading skills and strategies improvable by means of an app, which includes skimming, scanning, word recognition, recognising discourse structure and genre, and fluency. The importance of vocabulary for reading is undeniable: the former is needed for the latter, and the latter helps increase the former (Grabe 2009). Hence, this is the first aspect that will be addressed in the app. Next will be two very useful skills for university students: scanning (looking for specific information) and skimming (reading a text quickly to see whether or not it is worth reading more carefully). The third will be the genre characteristics of academic texts, often unknown to L2 speakers, the knowledge of which is of great help when reading a text with the purpose of learning about a specific topic. Finally, the app will focus on the development of reading fluency, to help users become quicker and more effective readers

Acció directa per millorar les condicions d'aprenentatge dels estudiants de primer. Curs de gramàtica descriptiva de l'anglès

Aquest projecte té com a objectiu principal millorar les condicions d'aprenentatge dels estudiants de dues assignatures troncals de primer curs de la titulació de Filologia Anglesa, Llengua Anglesa: Gramàtica Descriptiva I i Llengua Anglesa: Gramàtica Descriptiva II. En aquestes assignatures, els estudiants s'enfronten per primera vegada d'una manera sistemàtica i seriosa a la gramàtica d'una llengua estrangera, cosa que els resulta difícil. Per tal d'assolir aquest objectiu s'ha elaborat material d'estudi dissenyat específicament per als nostres estudiants (nivell de dificultat, temari cobert, comparació amb les llengües maternes). Aquest material s'ha plasmat en dos llibres de text, en una variada col·lecció d'exercicis (de diversos nivells de dificultat) i en una pàgina web interactiva. Tot això s'ha dut a terme amb una feina d'equip comptant amb un alt grau de cohesió i de coordinació, que ha permès assolir l'objectiu principal del projecte.Este proyecto tiene como objetivo principal mejorar las condiciones de aprendizaje de los estudiantes de dos asignaturas troncales de primer curso de la titulación de Filología Inglesa: Lengua Inglesa: Gramática Descriptiva I y Lengua Inglesa: Gramática Descriptiva II. En estas asignaturas, los estudiantes se enfrentan por primera vez de una manera sistemática y seria a la gramática de una lengua extranjera, cosa que les resulta difícil. Con el fin de alcanzar este objetivo se ha elaborado material de estudio diseñado específicamente para nuestros estudiantes (nivel de dificultad, temario cubierto, comparación con las lenguas maternas). Este material se ha plasmado en dos libros de texto, en una variada colección de ejercicios (con varios niveles de dificultad) y en una página web interactiva. Todo eso se ha llevado a cabo con un trabajo de equipo que cuenta con un alto grado de cohesión y de coordinación que ha permitido alcanzar el objetivo principal del proyecto.The primary goal of this project is to improve the learning conditions of students in two core courses in the first year of the degree programme in English Language and Literature, English Language: Descriptive Grammar I and II. In these courses, the students have to handle the grammar of a foreign language in a systematic, serious way for the first time, which proves difficult for them. In order to achieve this goal, study materials have been developed specifically for our students (level of difficulty, syllabus covered, comparison with native languages). This material has been compiled in two textbooks, in a varied collection of exercises (with differing levels of difficulty) and in an interactive website. All of this was accomplished with a working team with a great deal of cohesion and coordination, which has enabled us to achieve the main goal of the project