Skype in the classroom: A necessary web tool connecting cultures all over the world

Abstract

For a long time, information and communication technologies have been breaking into society and directly influencing the lives of people. The incorporation of these new technologies has revolutionized several fields, but one of the most affected is the field of education. The purpose of this article is to design several tasks based on the TBLT (Task-based Language Teaching) approach, in which the web tool Skype will be used in several sessions. The types of tasks performed during the sessions will depend on the kind of operations that learners have to do to perform the task. Therefore, the tasks will be divided into problem-solving tasks, creative tasks, comparing tasks, among many others. An essential factor for these tasks to be successful is the knowledge of the English language. All those involved in the conversation should be able to communicate in English. In this way, English language serves as a lingua franca that makes communication between people who do not share the same culture possible. Regarding the distribution of the tasks, there will be four sessions that will consist of a warm up, two pre-tasks, a task and a post-task. In the first session, two schools will connect via Skype, one in Castellon and the other in Edinburgh. The activities of this session seek to encourage the use of English, communication among students and participation. The second session will be based on contacting an expert in Australian animals, so that, they can carry out a virtual field trip in which the students enjoy the experience of being in an Australian zoo without leaving the class. The third session will focus on the trips made by the guest speaker. The guest is a tour guide who will share his experiences during his trips with the learners. The rest of the tasks will focus on preparing this activity and practice with the vocabulary learned. The last session will be based on the mystery skype game. During the game, two schools get in contact and one of the schools has to guess the location of the other.