I've recently spoken to several foreigners who would be thrilled to learn Bosnian before or during their stay in our country. Unfortunately, they said they couldn't find a single online course for learning Bosnian. Likewise, a lot of my friends would like to learn English, and there are plenty of courses online, but none of them which is in Bosnian and English. Usually, these are only monolingual (English). I would like to develop and create an online course for learning Bosnian and English. Easy online material and lessons available for all groups and age.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Zenica
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
I would gather around 5-6 people, preferably college students who study Bosnian or English. They would research other online courses and see what's in offer. Similar to that, we would come up with our own lesson material and ask for help in web designing and maintaining our online language learning page. All the students would be familiar with the Internet and would have strong computer skills.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
We would need Internet experts and web designers to help us create the page. The rest of us would do all the rest.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Lessons would be divided into sections, i.e. language learning skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Each section would have different learning material. The learning material itself would be consisted of easy step-by-step grammar and vocabulary, idioms and common everyday language. Anyone who wants to learn one of the two languages would be able to sign up and access the learning material at any point. Everything would be made in respect to different age groups and adjusted to everyone. Also, videos and recordings would be incorporated into the page, so learners would be able both to see and hear the lessons presentations.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
No connections so far. However, this project would include students studying the mentioned languages so we would make a partnership with the local university and the department of linguistics.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
This project will include 10 people maximum. 5 to 6 people would be working on the language material, and 4 would be in charge of putting everything on the Internet, setting up our web site, handling SEO, advertising and similar commercial issues.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
In the time of the Internet, many people choose to communicate through different online services. People don't have time to go to another city or different facilities to learn languages. They want something that is easy accessible and available to them at any time. Through our project, people will develop their computer skills, learn using audio and visual techniques.Web design, creative writing, informative and educational lesson material, video and audio presentations are just some of the tools we will bring to this project.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
If we establish a partnership with the university, we would use their facility to hold meetings and use their computer equipment and Internet connection to do the project. We would need at least 10 computers with ADSL or cable internet connection of high speed. As for making videos, we would either pay other people to shoot our videos and presentation or we would buy or rent the equipment ourselves and record everything we need. We would need a high quality camera, lighting, microphones and a technical help from the members of our team.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
I have graduated from Pedagogical faculty, Department of English and Literature and as an alumni, it wouldn't be a problem for me to establish a partnership with the university and ask for the help from their students. As a current English teacher, I have experience in preparing learning material, designing an annual and long-term curriculum, and I know what is essential in learning a foreign language. Since I work with adults as well, as a private tutor, I know what learning material works the best for them, so it wouldn't be a problem to create such lessons. I would include students of Bosnian language to help design Bosnian learning material.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The biggest challenge would be not to have the right experts working on our web site and dealing with issues concerning space and equipment. It is possible that the university won't accept our partnership, and in that case we would have to find the right space to work and borrow or buy our own equipment. But the beauty of it is that most of students have computers at home and we all can work and communicate from home. An occasional meeting could be held at one's home as well.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Our web site would measure the number of visits and access to our material. After the completion of lessons, all learners would be asked to participate in online examination to see their progress. Each learner would be able to comment and give feedback on each lesson and we would try our best to adjust or do any changes necessary if we find out that the lessons are hard to follow or not as good as we thought they would be. If the candidates pass the examination successfully, they would be transferred to a higher level and given the chance to go deep into the language and learn more. Our web site would be available to all people and there would be a team of people constantly following its progress.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The project could be done in the period between six and eight months.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Due to the fact that the member of my team would be students, it would take us a bit longer to put everything into practice. However, it could be done in approximately 6 months. If we would be able to use the university space, we would need money for our equipment and travel and food expenses only. If we would work from home, the expenses should cover the equipment and internet bills.
Costs for the necessary equipment would be around $1500 and we would need around $1000 to cover the costs of learning material design and web design, travel food and internet bills.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
Rising Voices could help us to advertise our page and our courses. We need to let people know that such courses are available.
Contact name
Sabina Družić