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The project During the school year 1998/99 I asked one of my classes to carry out a survey among the class students: they would process the data with a spreadsheet program, discuss the results, write a report and prepare a multimedia presentation.

 
The class 16 students from 4th form of ITC "Denina" - Saluzzo (Corso programmatori)
English level The students had been studying English for about 250 hours at high school level and the general level of proficiency was at level A2/B1.
Computer skills Although the students were attending Corso Programmatori, for the project's aim this was not a relevant advantage. However, they were all skilled in word processing and had basic skills in using spreadsheets, while only a couple had tried their hand at PowerPoint before.
Pre-requisites
  • Pre-intermediate English competence; 
  • Knowledge of the basic functions of the Windows operating system; 
  • Elementary notions of statistics; 
  • Practical skills in using Word and Excel.
Time frame 8-9 hours over a 4-week period. Part of the work was to be done by students at home.
Equipment & locales Classroom; computer lab; local network; Microsoft Office suite; floppies; photocopies.
Roles  of students and teachers The students were supposed to take full responsibility of the project's organisation and work.
The teacher's role was to supervise and give advice when necessary, and take up an active role only in critical situations or when a given problem would slow down the work too much.
The teacher acted as an advisor for both language and computer-related problems.

No other teacher was involved.