The Barcelona team were very busy last year. From May until October they ran 5 workshops consisting of 4 sessions each. Most of the first meetings have been done face to face, even though the gatherings are still restricted to six people whereas most of the final sessions have been done online, due to the participants’ timetables (time off from work, etc). They completed the workshops in December.
So far, their participants are thrilled with the app and the opportunity they have to try new technology to record and create their own activities.
“Mai he tingut una càmera com aquesta a les meves mans, sembla fràgil, però la veritat és que és molt còmoda, ara he d'aprendre com va”. “I never had a camera like this in my hands, it seems fragile, but the truth is it's very comfortable, now I have to learn how it works”.
“Es la primera vez que tengo en mis manos una Tablet con lapiz, va muy rápido. Yo no tengo de estas cosas en casa”. "It's the first time I've had a tablet with a pen in my hands, it goes very fast. I don't have these things at home".
“A aquesta tauleta no li fa falta res, podem fer tot el que necessitem amb els vídeos i amb les aplicacions que té, només ens en de posar i anar fent”. “This tablet doesn’t lack anything, we can do everything we need with the videos and with the applications it has, we just need to roll up our sleeves and start working”.
On their first session, the participants tried the app and the most popular activities were the ones produced in Turkish and Mandarin. Despite being in Barcelona, they also gave a try to the “Sardanas activity” which is a typical dance in Catalonia. Our participants liked to create the paper cutting “blessing” sign for their houses too as well as to try the Learning Turkish with Nasreddin Hodja activity, in which they had a ball repeating the key vocabulary. The participants even found a mistake in the activity, which has now been corrected!
"M’agraden molt aquestes activitats en Turc, m’agrada la sonoritat. Ara no em recordo de tot el vocabulari, però si de.. yorulur… quan està cansat l’avi". "I love these activities in Turkish very much, I like how it sounds. Now I don't remember all the vocabulary, but from 'yorulur' I know it’s that the grandfather's tired".
“I like the story they tell us when presenting the activity, it’s like... I don’t know what I’m going to learn, and it’s exciting”.
One of our main tasks during the workshops was deciding on the activity each cultural pair was going to do, even though it took time to decide, they were really happy with their decisions and started working on them straight away!
Our team in Barcelona also, had the opportunity to show the app to their students, try the technology they had to produce good quality content and invite them to join the workshops.
So far, their opinion about the app is very positive.
“I find this app could be very useful for language and culture teaching. The teacher must be a guide throughout the whole process, if we want to use it in a classroom, and although this pushes children to be autonomous, they are going to need guidance of course. We are always looking for ways to make students more autonomous and this type of app can help with that”.
“This app could be very engaging for kids, as it has lots of visual support and makes it easy for them to understand the information. I would say that there are a lot of very interesting ways to use it and it should be applied in the classroom”.
“I like how the app works; it gives you first a context in which you know where to use the words later on you will be working with. It is easy to interact with too, and the activities we see at the end of each video helps us remember the useful vocabulary [I tried to not cheat going back to check what they were]”.
“Em sembla intuïtiva i fàcil, ara segur estarà dintre de les meves favorites, a més que ja soc un dels protagonistes dels vídeos”. “I think it's intuitive and easy, I'm sure I will save it on my favourite websites. I'm already a video protagonist, you know!”.
“Me gusta la oportunidad que me da de crear mi contenido y mostrar a la gente mi cultura. Aunque esté lejos de mi país a mi me gusta mostrar a la gente como es mi gente, mi cultura, y esta app me da esa oportunidad. ¡Estoy encantado!”. "I like the opportunity it gives me to create my own content and show people my culture. Even though I am far away from my country I like to show people what my people are, how my culture is. This app gives me that opportunity. I am delighted!".