Newsletter 4: 2nd Progress Meeting Crete May 2007

M.Eleftheriou Tue 8 Jul 2008

2nd Progress Meeting

Relevant issues

Although the Interim Report was submitted to LEARGAS, Dublin in January 2008, it was not evaluated until June 2007 (after this meeting) which has caused real difficulties in budgetary terms, as partners are not sure whether certain activities are acceptable. Another important change was the departure of Dr O'Connell from Bergen Hogheskule to Scotland, though he will be able to continue working for Bergen in a part-time capacity. The Management Group has lost the services of Ms McVeigh, who has resigned from AMC, though continuing her work on PESCALEX on a contractual basis.

The structural re-design of the website took longer than anticipated to carry out. Its interface looks much the same as the previous one, but its functionality is very different.

The English section of the Language Modules(with the requested extra material) was online by the end of November 2006, followed by Basic Techniques for Fish Haematology (English, French, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish) from November to February 2007, then by the Fish Diseases Glossary(now edited down to 1471 items) in all project languages except Greek (March-April 2007). The French and Spanish Level 1 modules were online in April and in May 2007.

All these are still in the Restricted site where they will remain for the time being, as the site suffered a serious attack by hackers in February 2007.

The Fish disease module, now renamed Aquatic Pathology module is still being adapted for CLIL presentation. This is an extremely time-consuming task as partners had decided that the text should follow the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation structural format as in FISHBASE, which lists all information in brief note format without main verbs. As a result only two modules (Oyster and Carp) were sent out for translation at the end of January. The Carp module was translated, programmed and online in time for testing by several partners. The modifications from these tests were presented, discussed and accepted. Which of course meant even more new translations and programming changes to the materials already online.

New audio element

The partners decided that it was absolutely essential to include an audio element in the Beginners' language module, as the CLIL methodology demanded this. Therefore, the Coordinator extracted the 250 most essential lexical items in all 6 project languages and sent them to be recorded. Again, an enormously time-consuming undertaking not in the original proposal which should enhance the final product.

Final Workshop

Final details were worked out, including the draft agenda. All further details will be given on the PESCALEX website, along with the Final Programme. It was decided to use the Fish Diseases module as a basis for the game, to be produced by AQUARK.

STOP PRESS

The Workshop has now been postponed to September 2007, to coincide with the European Day of Languages.

The assigned partner, AQUARK felt there was not enough time or budget to construct the PESCALEX Game for the September Workshop. The Coordinator has therefore undertaken to construct the game, based on Basic Techiques of Fish Haematology, for which there is ample online materials in all 6 languages. However, Greek will not be included as it is too much to require students to learn a new alphabet in addition to the other language learning tasks.

<< Back