Introduction
Beyond Borders is a facility provided by SCIL, to allow students from across the world to join online communities using a nominated language to communicate. This facility is ideal for teachers wishing to give their students a chance to broaden their horizons and develop initiative.
Beyond Borders is a safe and secure environment for students:
- students can only join under the direction of their teacher who monitors and moderates their involvement and is in contact with the site administrator
- students are instructed not to disclose any personal information on the site
- each student has a username and password
The Perfect Place for Language Students
Language students in particular have a chance to use the language they are learning to communicate with peers from across the world.
However, students from other subject areas can also benefit from joining a community. For instance, we have an English literature discussion group, a cultural understanding group, and soon a Science community where students compare rainfall and weather information from their regions in the world.
Informal Beyond Borders Communities
Ideal for language students, an ‘informal community’ is a webspace where students can communicate constructively using a number of tools:
- email forums
- a live text chat
- document exchanging
- wikis
- voicemail
- audio chat (using the Beyond Borders ‘teamspeak’ server)
Thus, French students in Australia communicate in French with students in Japan, America, Russia, and of course native speakers from France.
Formal Beyond Borders Projects
Ideal for motivated students, a typical project sees about sixteen students, from a variety of countries, cooperate and collaborate to research an area of interest, and create a final online product. They use wiki technology to publish a final web page that remains accessible for future visitors to the website.
Projects of work can be designed by teachers or participants in minutes, using a standard template, and can apply to any subject area, for example: Economics, Science, History or Cultural Studies. They can be simple and straightforward, or deep and involved. Language students, in particular, can move beyond language borders and experience the joy of global community, via a non-native tongue.