Odile Pouchol teaches English in Grenoble, France. She has been using information communication technologies to teach cultural values. She argues that ICT in teaching also helps raising European awareness.
The use of ICT in the classroom has really started to develop in the last five years and as a language teacher in a secondary school in France, I have realized the tremendous opportunity it gives to the pupils to develop their skills in different fields such as listening, helping to understand a message, building the language structure and writing simple or more complex sentences.
Using the word processor to invent a story or write short articles, making powerpoint presentations or web pages on a specific topic, I do believe that, through the use of these tools, the language learner becomes more confident in his own capacity to build the language.
I have seen this done very successfully for instance during the activities done by students involved in Comenius projects: our pupils work in partnership with other European schools and ICT activities such as making web pages about environmental issues or writing to the partners to talk about themselves and exchange ideas, this is a source of strong motivation for them as well as an opportunity to open their minds to other cultures and ways of thinking.
So, beyond contributing to developing their language competence and their autonomy, the use of ICT can also be a way for our pupils to learn about the European community and our common values.
I have seen this done very successfully for instance during the activities done by students involved in Comenius projects: our pupils work in partnership with other European schools and ICT activities such as making web pages about environmental issues or writing to the partners to talk about themselves and exchange ideas, this is a source of strong motivation for them as well as an opportunity to open their minds to other cultures and ways of thinking.
