Connecting global minds : online telecollaborative learning for global citizenship education

Abstract

ILLSA is a publicly funded multilingual e-Learning project in Hong Kong which utilises the online platforms edX, FutureLearn, Google Drive and Wix to establish online cross-cultural teamwork among foreign language learners of higher education institutions in Hong Kong and Europe. Participants compare “healthy city” practices across the globe in the language they are learning - French, German, Italian or Spanish, while working in small cross-cultural groups online to evaluate their cities and communities, to perform research tasks and to organize a collaborative community project. A specially designed language course for each language on FutureLearn enables them to practice their language skills individually. Current sustainability issues, physical and mental health, cultural-, gender-, ethnicity-, and age-based diversity, and environmental aspects, are among some of the selected research areas. Occasional cooperation challenges among the participants due to differences in time zones, academic schedules and individual working patterns, are resolved with the support of the ILLSA team and collaborators. Rolled out in 2018 and organised by three leading Universities in Hong Kong, ILLSA already involves 17 universities worldwide with nearly 300 participating students representing 40 nationalities. The project was widely reported in local newspapers as a unique good practice for foreign language learning. Project objectives include, among others: encouraging students to collaborate with each other on community actions and evaluate their own communities in the target languages, broadening participants’ global vision by exposing them to sustainability practices in Hong Kong and Europe, along with enhancing their communicative skills in the respective languages. The learning outcomes are being evaluated by quantitative and qualitative analyses in the areas of language enhancement, intercultural competence enhancement and overall perception and impact. ILLSA practices could continue beyond its completion date, by being incorporated into the curriculum of language courses at higher education institutions across the globe.