Participation of the team of the Faculty of Maritime Studies Kotor in the workshop of the ReFlame project
As part of the project dedicated to the reform of foreign language teaching in higher education in Montenegro (ReFlame), a workshop entitled Blended language learning: best practices and new perspectives ("Combined approach in language learning: best practices and new perspectives ”). This is one of a series of workshops held within the mentioned project, in which representatives of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Kotor also participate.
Unlike the previous ones, the right to participate in the workshop dedicated to combined teaching methods, with special emphasis on the application of online applications, this time had lecturers and associates from other teaching areas. Thus, the team of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Kotor, which also represented one working group for practical activities, had five members, namely: assoc. prof. Milena Dževerdanović, PhD, assoc. prof. Tatijana Dlabač, PhD, Zorica Đurovic, MA, Vera Kapetanović, MSc and Ana Babović. Numerous representatives from other faculties of the University of Montenegro, as well as the University of Donja Gorica and the University of the Mediterranean, actively participated in the workshop.
During about 40 working hours of intensive theoretical and practical interactive training (April 12-16), lecturers from the University of Foreigners in Perugia and the University of Zagreb held exceptional workshops dedicated to modern methods of combined and interactive approaches to learning through online applications, as well as opportunities their practical applications. During the following week (April 19-23), the working groups were tasked with team work to design a practical activity and present it in the form of a 15-minute video.
The working team of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Kotor designed two interactive activities. Namely, after the introduction dedicated to emphasizing the importance of the language of the maritime profession in communication on modern ships with international crew, as well as the challenges that this specific area of the language of the profession brings, the first activity was designed and implemented with second year students of Nautics and Maritime Traffic. Using the Spiral application, students watched and listened to an example of VHF communication from real situations via the Moodle platform, and video sections were followed by questions related to the previously listened part, which tested their skills of listening and understanding the language of the profession from real situations on the ship. The exercise was prepared through the advanced Spiral application, which enables the segmentation of parts of the video display with questions related to them, as well as the recording of answers and their monitoring and summarization in real time.
The second part of the recorded material presented a joint activity in which teachers with expert knowledge from various fields participated, in this case, the English language of the ship engineering profession and practical exercises on the ship engine simulator. Thanks to the assistance of associates Miroslav Vukičević, MSc, machine manager engaged in the course Simulators and Navigation Practice, a joint activity was held through the Zoom application, in which students of the study program Danilo Dragović and Ilija Radonjić had the opportunity to test and improve previously acquired knowledge of English (ship engineering) and knowledge of individual ship systems and their management through practical demonstrations and training on a simulator of machine space and ship systems.
At the presentation of the final works of the working groups, the team of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Kotor received numerous congratulations from both lecturers and present colleagues for the results that reflect the valuable teamwork, dedication and creativity. Most importantly, students reacted positively to innovative teaching approaches, especially the application of advanced online applications, which gives all teachers new motivation for further training and enrichment of teaching and interaction with students, even in the face of numerous limitations imposed by the current situation.
The video from the mentioned workshop can be viewed at the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew6jHkyccRc&feature=emb_title