Innovation in Language Learning

School work and learning in formal teaching contexts may be regarded by many students as irrelevant to their lives. Many students start to become reluctant to learn and adopt disruptive behaviour in the classroom or drop out school. This has been an issue European, national and local authorities are concerned about. It was the goal of this project to make the learning process more motivating, by reaching out the different learning styles and by engaging them in the learning process in a way that is both appealing and unthreatening.

Being an achievement for all and the improvement of the quality the central focus of this project, the expected result was to have students feel more secure as learners, to realize their potentials and to motivate them both as future professionals and as human beings.

This project took an action-oriented approach to learning. Students were required to take their cameras and go out and observe the world around them in order to look for connections between the learning contents addressed in different school subjects like Mathematics, Biology, Geology, Chemistry, History, Foreign Languages, Mother Tongue, Arts, ICT, Music, Physical Education and vocational studies (Marketing, Economics, Restaurant Service) and the reality around them. Students   used photography as a tool for observation and knowledge building according to the learning areas they focused to. The teachers of the subjects involved in the project included objectives, methodologies and activities related to photography and observation in their annual curriculum.

Throughout the project, a large cooperation and involvement of the schools communities was fulfilled to develop project activities and produce outcomes.  Students showed greater social responsibility in school, family and local, as well as the European community by assuming their roles in the collaborative groups and by achieving the tasks assigned to them and adopting cooperative rules.

The degree of students’ involvement in all stages from planning to assessing the impact of the project enhanced students’ autonomy and social competences as well as motivation to learn. The development of the participants’ intercultural sensitivity allowed them to broaden their cultural perspective on different issues. The project, based on using photography to teach and to learn, promoted the creation of a wide range of original and creative products which are accessible on the webpage of the project.