Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Palestinian HEls:
An e-Learning Initiative that
Bridges Educational and Socio-Political Gaps "TEFL-ePal"

Project outline

The project aims to bring about major improvements in the design of flexible curricula, innovation, digital educational resources, infrastructure, teacher development, professional development, coordinate to promote English T/L, increase linguistic capacity, access to knowledge, and develop skills of lifelong learning in HEIs within EU standards. The project helps to initiate TEFL team and language centers to enhance ICT integration, blended learning & research studies. The special geopolitical context added to the restrictions imposed by occupation, undoubtedly, affects access equitable, and quality education for all students in Palestine. The aim of the team is to make excellence in TEFL available to the widest possible audience through the platform; easy access to knowledge and the availability of OER are a crucial opportunity to focus on one-to-one personalized instruction powered by digital tools adapted to each student’s strategy and solution as it is not restricted to a geographical area, or a specific classroom. TEFL-ePAL will be a platform and reference for educators, students, and professors; it is the first time that TEFL specialists in our HEIs have a channel to work side by side with their European peers who generate mutual understanding, and the first gate for TEFL experts of EU partners to contribute to develop TEFL outcomes.

Chemnitz Motivation

Chemnitz is interested in participating in this project, because it specialises in teaching and learning English world-wide and wants to support teachers and researchers in this field in countries where this is necessary. We do not gain any personal financial rewards, we would like to share our global practical experience and persepctive with our graduates in Chemnitz and colleagues who visit us from many parts of the world.

Project Outcomes

In addition to improving and innovating the Englsh language teaching curricula at the Palestinian universities participating in the project, we also developed new textbooks to accompany classes. These books are OERs and can be downloaded below.

• Pre-intermediate English
• Intermediate English 1
• Intermediate English 2
• Advanced English

Final Project Management Meeting in Eskisehir, Turkey (May 6-9, 2022)

The final report is discussed and approved by the management commitee.

Closing Event and Dissemination Conference (March 22, 2022)

The closing event of the project will serve several purposes. First, all partners involved will reflect on the project and share their experience. Second, the event will be used to disseminate the results of the projects to stakeholders in the region. Lastly, the event aims at disseminating insights gained from the transition from a traditional curriculum to a digital first curriculum.

TU Chemnitz contribute the following presentation:
Schmied, Josef "What have we learnt fromthe forced remote learning experienceduring the Covid-19 pandemic forthe ePal project in Palestine?"

and organised serval remote online contributions from affiliated scholars.

Final Field Visits (March 20-21, 2022)

Before the Project Dissemination Conference, project participants had the opportunity to visit participating institutions and discuss the project impact on site with teachers and students.

 

Second Pilot Phase (September 2021 - March 2022)

As suggested by the funding body, we conduct a second pilot phase, hoping that the pandemic situation has improved sufficiently to allow in person teaching. Building on experience gained during the first pilot phase, a flexible hybrid approach to teaching will be used, utilizing the infrastructure established through the project.

Management Meeting (August 2021)

As the project received a no-cost extension by the funding body, we discussed necessary adjustments to our work plans with all partners involved. In addition, the date of the closing conference of the project was fixed to April 2022.

Pilot Phase (September 2020 - March 2021)

Together with our Palestinian partners, the TU Chemnitz team prepared the launch of the pilot phase of the new curricula. We developed pre and post intervention questionnaires for both teachers and students, as well as checklists and quality assurance processes to ensure the smooth transition to the new curricula and to collect valid data to assess the effect of the intervention.

Thanks to the digital first focus of the TEFL-ePAL project, we were able to mitigate the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. All new teaching materials were develop with hybrid learning scenarios in mind, allowing us to easily switch to an all online environment. In particular, deploying Moodle as a LMS at all Palestinian partner universities enabled teachers and students to continue teaching and learning during lockdown.

TEFL-ePAL Training Visit Chemnitz (January 2020)

Details on the training visit can be found here.

The purpose of this visit is to train our Plaestinian partners in revising and creating text books and teaching materials to be used in the English 101 and English 102, as well as in Beginner classes and Advanced English classes at Palestinian HEIs. The training will build on the experience of using and designing textbooks for teaching English in Germany and will consider the following directives:

• affirm Palestinian identity in a global context
• nurture leadershio qualitites
• co-opt student input
• develop critical thinking skills
• facilitate creativity
• engage learners
• reflect students' diverese interests and elarning proclivities
• conductive to long-term employabiltiy

The materials that will be developed shall be:

• based on authentic materials
• 'technology' driven