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Kirkwood Pilots Online English Language Teaching in Brazil

By September 9, 2014January 3rd, 2019No Comments

Kirkwood Community College’s many international partnerships with colleges and universities around the globe demonstrate a strong commitment to the mission of international education and global learning. This past year, Kirkwood has been actively engaged in an innovative teaching project with its new partner school in Lavras, Brazil: Gammon Institute.

Kirkwood’s innovative English-teaching project in Brazil has involved many areas of the college, including Kirkwood’s English Language Acquisition (ELA) course curriculum, a partnership with Kirkwood’s International Programs department and the technology from Kirkwood’s Distance Learning department. The project involves English language course delivery via a synchronous online platform, allowing Kirkwood instructors and Brazilian students to interact over the internet.

In Kirkwood’s spring 2014 semester, ten Gammon Institute high school seniors enrolled in the pilot course from Brazil to improve their English language communication through the context of American culture.

Ryan Dehner, one of Kirkwood’s star English Language Acquisition faculty, developed the curriculum. According to Dehner, “We listened to Gammon’s request, we built a product, and we delivered. Essentially, we have responded to a real need to connect the international community, or a small portion of it, with not only access to native English speakers, but to the American college classroom. With four online ELA courses on the way, we are laying a strong foundation upon which we can explore the possibility of creating additional partnerships and perhaps offer our ELA courses to other schools in Brazil. It’s very exciting.”

Kirkwood’s Executive Dean of Distance Learning, Todd Prusha, remarks, “Kirkwood’s mission is to identify community need. Advances in technology have greatly expanded our definition of “community”. We have a great partnership with the Gammon team and look for continued success with our new offerings in Brazil. We hope to replicate this program with sister schools in other parts of our world community.”

Kirkwood’s International Programs staff worked with the students in Brazil to ensure they’d been properly enrolled as Kirkwood students. According to International Programs Director Dawn Wood, “Having international partnerships benefits Kirkwood in a multitude of ways. This particular partnership has been a unique opportunity for our faculty to engage the students in Brazil real-time, facilitating global learning without the need for 13 hours of travel.”

The result has been a unique, global learning experience for Gammon students and Kirkwood staff and faculty. Next week, Wood, Prusha and Dehner are headed to Brazil to prepare the Gammon Institute for the next online ELA course delivery scheduled for February 2015 and meet with other interested higher education organizations in the state of Minas Gerais. President of Gammon Institute, Alysson Carvalho, has arranged for the team to meet with one of Brazil’s top universities, UFLA (Universidade Federal de Lavras), known for its courses in agronomy and veterinary science. Kirkwood and UFLA have already agreed to pursue a visit by Kirkwood agriculture students in March 2015 and are in the process of signing an exchange agreement.