FALINAR- Produktion fachsprachlicher Online-Lehr- und Lerntools und ihre Nutzung für die Ausbildung in der Fachrichtung Reiseverkehr

Startdatum Dezember 2014

Lecturers
Students

Tourism

Autonomous learning
Classroom Context

German

Any language

B1
B2
C1
C2

Activity/task
Audio
Picture/Graphics
Reference resources (online Dictionaries/ grammar guides/phrasebooks)
Test

Vocabulary
Grammar
Prosody

Listening
Reading

The project FALINAR "Production of online technical language teaching and learning tools and their use for training in the field of travel" was designed by the coordinator TUKE (SK) and three partners: IIK (D), FHSS (HR) and BIOS (CY) and started in December 2014, within the framework of the EU-funded ERASMUS+ programme.
The course, divided into three modules, covers three aspects (medicine, safety and environment) that are becoming increasingly important for tourism in the future. The wide range of exercises covers the core language competences of listening and reading comprehension, and can be used by learners starting from level B1/B2.
A large number of programmed exercises can be worked on by the student comfortably from home. The order of the units does not have to be strictly adhered to. The exercises can be chosen independently of each other, according to personal needs and interests.
On a positive note, programmed exercises are corrected not only by marking in red, but by giving the student the possibility to see the actual correct solution in each case.
Many of the exercises for classroom-context can also be worked on independently outside of class, but due to the large number of possible answers they should be corrected by a teacher whenever possible.

For evaluation purposes, Falinar was used by a small group of students with a B2 starting level who had previously attended lessons covering health and tourism as topics of everyday language or who were completing an apprenticeship as a care worker. Although the project was conceived to support a blended learning approach and provides materials for both classroom and autonomous learning activities, the assessment focused on the latter, given the availability of materials on the website. The students were asked to work asynchronously on the assigned chapters in a self-regulated manner in addition to providing feedback on their learning experience. Since all participants met the language skills prerequisites described in the Falinar guidelines, they did not consider the assignment too challenging. The strength of the project certainly lies in providing a learning framework that primarily supports expanding lexical and communication skills in an LSP environment, which was also confirmed and appreciated by the students. They rated the topics and learning content positively and managed to successfully improve their vocabulary. However, they criticized the overall design as not very engaging and somewhat outdated. They also complained about some technical issues, e.g. page-content not showing up, video quality, the technical setup of the exercises. Moreover, the Italian and Korean students were unable to use the provided glossary because it is still limited to only four languages. The addition at least of English could considerably increase the possibilities for use. Of course, Falinar, as a media content and assignment resource, becomes more efficient and meaningful when integrated into a course environment that favours a modular teaching setup.

According to the project partners, mastering the basic knowledge and competences taught in the TOURNEU and MIG-KOMM-EU projects is essential for successful work with the course. The three core areas of the course (Medical Aspects of Tourism, Safety in Tourism, Tourism and Environment) are each divided into 4-5 units. Some of the units give the impression that registration is required to access these very units. However, this is not the case. So-called guest access or self-registration is sufficient. The units are further divided into lessons, which first provide exercise material in the form of videos, factual texts and illustrations. Based on these, exercises can be performed subsequently. The units of the course do not necessarily have to be worked through in the order presented.

Further information:
https://falinar.tuke.sk/moodle/local/staticpage/view.php?page=podcasts Podcasts
https://falinar.tuke.sk/moodle/local/staticpage/view.php?page=quiz Quiz