Innovation in Language Learning

In October 2015, as part of an assignment in our master program we started an online youth magazine with contributions of children from the three schools we teach in. The schools belong to quite diverse communities in Romania. The participants are from middle school and come from different grades. Our first objective was to bring together children from different environments and offer a context where they could express genuinely and develop communication as well as intercultural competences in a meaningful way. Thus the sections of the magazine were discussed and set together and they encompass the children’s current interests.

At the beginning of the second semester the scope of our project expanded with the help of an international student from our university and some Syrian school children. Consequently our objective extended in order to give Romanian and Syrian children the opportunity to see each other’s works despite the distance in space and culture.

The current shape of the magazine is a pdf on a blog that can be easily accessed by all the participants. It includes seven sections with texts, drawings and poems written by the pupils from both countries. The names of the sections and the captions are in Romanian, Arabic and English.

Interesting enough, beyond fronteers and cultural differences, the magazine reveals several similarities between the works of the children from Romania and those from the Syrian children, like the way in which the houses were drawn or the sky was represented in a visual form. The themes in their poems were very much similiar as well, like  poems about the love for their mothers, or fairy tale characters. Though the environment in which they live in is very much different, the resemblances are astonishing.

Our paper is intended to detail the results of the project as well as to present the partnership that was created within the framework of a simple digital tool that enhances the opportunity for the children to express their creativity, not only by elaborating the articles in the magazine, but also by helping us as a team to design it.