Explain

31/08/2017 (end of the European Project)

Lecturers
Students

Business & Communication
Journalism & multimedia

Autonomous learning
Classroom Context

Italian

Italian

B1
B2

Activity/task
Guiding resources (online course/book)
Picture/Graphics
Reference resources (online Dictionaries/ grammar guides/phrasebooks)

Vocabulary
Grammar
Pragmatics

Listening
Speaking
Critical Thinking
Writing
Reading
Mediation

The European project “Explain – How to tell what you know well” offers structured support to students in improving their proficiency in the Italian or English languages as medium of instruction in their study programs in order to reap the full benefits of their learning experience. In this view, the set of tools provided meets both the needs of language learning/teaching for academic purposes and language learning/teaching for specific purposes (LAP and LSP). The set covers 4 steps to guarantee oral/written presentations of a high academic standard which are described as follows:
1) Map your knowledge: how to plan your learning, collect data and information and verify if you have really understood the meaning of concepts
2) Synthesize text: how summarize and prepare texts for written essays or oral presentations
3) Handle numbers: how to manage numeric data grouping and presentation using infographics techniques
4) Speak easy: how to improve oral performance for exams and public presentations.

The OER “Explain” was submitted for review to humanities students in Bologna and Valencia University who were then asked to prepare a written and/or multimedia presentation concerning these study materials. They worked independently and in groups with the following instructions: 1) browse and test the materials; 2) answer an individual questionnaire regarding the use of the tools and the activities; 3) participate in a group discussion of the individual evaluations; 4) produce a collective report with a detailed evaluation of the study resources you and your group analysed. The students were guided in their individual analysis by a grid containing the main descriptive/analytical evaluation categories. The Explain materials were considered very well organised, interesting and useful on both a linguistic and metacognitive level. In fact, they were deemed instrumental in developing a greater awareness of the student's own effectiveness in university learning. The section that was found to be most useful, particularly for students in the humanities, was the one on the use of statistical data and infographics in monologic presentations of disciplinary content in the academic environment.

In most cases, the underlying teaching model is that of PPP (Presentation-Practice-Production). This is complemented by textual models to analyse and reflect on and self-assessment grids to measure one's own productions. This set of resources also includes various handbooks aimed at teachers, students and the general public which can be downloaded in pdf format and can be used for off-line study.