Integrating e-tandem in Higher Education

Abstract

This paper describes the experience of the pilot project E-Tandem-Projekt Valköln , between a group of German learners at Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and a group of Spanish learners at the Language Learning Center of TH Köln during the summer semester of 2015. Following the philosophy of the tandem methodology, the aim of the pilot project was to promote action-oriented learning, autonomous learning, and effective communication skills in all domains (reading, writing, speaking and listening), intercultural exchange and international collaboration by the use of web 2.0-tools. For the realization of the asynchronous online-based collaboration a wiki software was used as virtual learning environment. For synchronous conversations s tudents used Skype where they exchanged information about their academic lives. The project also involved a synchronous online session with the two language courses by using the virtual meeting tool Adobe Connect. This project was carried out within an institutional context. Therefore, it is important to focus the preparation and collaborative facilitation between the two institutions. The results of the e-tandem pilot project shows that students were more motivated and felt more interested in engaging in conversation with native speakers and exchanging personal and academic information.