Evaluation in eCOLE

An ongoing internal evaluation is one of the distinguishing features of the eCOLE Project. It reflects the conviction of the projects partners that quality assurance and quality control should not be left to final external evaluation measures only. We believe that they should be part of the working process right from the beginning, involving the partners in a constant attempt to reflect on the working methods and to change procedures if necessary.

Consequently, the feedback from the first round of ACROSS and WSS has led to significant changes in the setup for the second round in the autumn of 2002. In order to enhance the intercultural aspect we will make sure to leave time for the students to get to know each other, to familiarize themselves with the TELSI platform, and also time for conclusion and reflection.

For more detailed information on the evaluation results please contact Gerd Egloff at: Egloff@LingLit.TU-Darmstadt.De

 
eCOLE – Student Evaluation of WSS 
All figures quoted in per cent  
Ratings from 5 to 1 (5 being the best rating)
5 4 3 2 1 n.a.
How much did you like the work in the eCOLE project? 11 54 33 2 - -
How much did you identify with the project? 4 46 41 9 - -
How much did you look forward to the following aspects?
Teamwork within my group: 11 41 39 6 2 -
Working with computers: 20 15 30 26 9 -
Contact to foreign young people: 15 26 24 22 13 -
Story writing: 11 26 54 9 - -
Story reading: 9 61 28 2 - -
Content-based language learning: 9 37 50 - 4 -
How much did you like to work with the following text?
Love story: 30 33 37 15 6 -
Autobiography: 2 22 33 22 22 -
Detective story: 33 30 20 15 - 2
Travel book: 20 39 33 6 - 2
Soap opera: 2 11 30 46 11 -
Which of these points were important for you?
Teamwork within my group: 30 33 35 - 2 -
Working with computers: 6 22 43 24 4 -
Contact to foreign young people: 17 30 33 9 11 -
Story writing: 22 37 28 13 - -
Story reading: 17 35 35 11 2 -
Content-based language learning: 9 33 46 11 2 -
yes no n.a.
Did you notice a development in your own work? 65 30 4
Did your expectations come true?  74 26 0
Did you get support from your co-learners? 67 30 2
Did you get support from your teacher(s)? 96 2 2

 

The students were asked for comments on a number of questions.

What did you like most in the project?

  • teamwork within groups
  • teamwork outside formalized groups
  • interaction and co-operation with students from other countries

 

Working with computers, especially
  • to communicate with the students from other countries,
  • to search for information on the Internet (links to the stories)

 

What didn’t you like in the project?
  • The time pressure - too little time to do the job.
  • Not all stories were interesting
  • Would have liked that the relationship among the students in all participating groups had been warmer

 

Did you notice a development in your own work?

The students report that they have enhanced their command of the English language in that they have increased

  • their vocabulary
  • their writing skills - different genres
  • their reading skills
  • their knowledge of grammar

 

Comments of a more general nature:
  • "keep going, projects like these are useful"
  • "when I read the introduction to the project I didn't expect much of it but after starting to write and read the stories I found it very interesting"
  • "I was a bit afraid, because I am not strong in such essay writing. But I thought that I am not alone, so I expected something new. It is a good way of learning English, but it takes time.

 

To conclude we can say that the results of the evaluation confirm the expectations of the project team that real life-learning situations support learners’ motivation in language learning and that it is motivating, too, to work responsibly for aims their group decided on.

Criticism, which has to be taken into account, is lack of time and lack of communication. The project team will take this into account when planning the next round of WSS.

 

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