On February 7, 2024, Mária Hricková, myself (Fella Benabed), and a group of students from Algeria and Slovakia, animated an event entitled “Collaborative Online International Learning for Sustainable Development Goals” as part of the 7^th SDGs conference at Bergen University, Norway. The topic of this year was “The Role of Universities in Transformative Change.” Our event, which lasted 90 minutes, was divided into three stages. Mária Hricková started by presenting the Erasmus+ project “Fostering Students’ Interdisciplinary Competence through the Action-Oriented Approach & COIL” (led by Nitra University in Slovakia, in partnerships with universities and high schools from Algeria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania).

After that, I talked about the first COIL cohort organized by Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, in the autumn of 2023, on the topic of Sustainable Development Goals. The objectives of the COIL workshops were to help learners understand the meaning of sustainability and its four pillars, identify the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reflect on their contributions to the achievement of these SDGs, and benefit from collaborative learning and internationalization at home with peers from diverse backgrounds. The activities were designed to equip learners with the knowledge and skills necessary to take action for the SDGs, allowing them to become effective change-makers today and responsible decision-makers tomorrow.

I organized the workshops in terms of the four pillars of sustainability:

Human Sustainability stresses the need to provide the conditions in which human beings can realize their full potential, like the reduction of poverty and hunger, as well as the investment in healthcare and education.

Social Sustainability emphasizes the interdependencies amongst individuals and communities, cultivating an environment of global justice and mutual respect.

Economic Sustainability goes beyond the traditional conception of economic growth and moves into the qualitative aspects of economic development. It is not only about profit, but also about how that profit is achieved, who benefits from it, and the impacts it has on other pillars of sustainability. An economically sustainable model is characterized by equitable distribution, social welfare, and environmental preservation.

Environmental Sustainability emphasizes the necessity of preserving the ecosystem; it is not only about conservation but also about restoration. In a world struggling with climate change, environmental sustainability involves measures to adapt to change and build resilience against future uncertainties.

Despite their interrelatedness, I tried to classify these 17 SDGs into the previously mentioned thematic clusters and I came up with the following plan for every workshop.

Human Sustainability (SDGs 1, 2, 3, and 4)

Ø  Social Sustainability (SDGs 5 and 10)

Ø  Economic Sustainability (SDGs 8, 9, 11, and 12)

Ø  Environmental Sustainability (SDGs 6, 7, 13, 14, and 15)

Ø  Global Peace and Partnership (SDGs 16 and 17)

In each of these workshops, I tried to design thought-provoking activities to raise students’ awareness and inspire them to take action for the SDGs. For instance, we had whole-group discussions on each SDG using pictures from the UN Development program. We also had individual reflections in which students were asked to analyze the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on SDGs 1, 2, 3, and 4, thinking of possible solutions to avoid similar impacts in the future. We equally had group work in breakout rooms, like an activity in which students watched a video on a sports competition where a black girl was denied her medal. I first asked the students about the emotions raised by this scene, aiming to develop their feelings of empathy and intolerance towards injustice. I then asked them to share stories about a form of discrimination they might have personally experienced, watched on the media, or read about somewhere. In another activity, I asked students to notice and compare the carbon footprint of their own countries, explaining why they reached this alarming consumption of natural resources and how they can reduce it. Of all activities, the one on blogging was the most popular, as many students mentioned it in their post-COIL reflections, and my students at Annaba University are eager to start plogging activities very soon. Finally, students were asked to read the United Nations’ document “The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World,” and then reflect on their initial level concerning the SDGs and how it has evolved throughout the 6 workshops. 

In the third stage of the event organized as part of the SDGs conference in Bergen, five students, Nabiha Merabet, Malak Ayette Guellati, Jihan Bouguettaya, Richard Zilai, and Rassim Morakchi took turns to reflect on their learning during the workshops and their ensuing actions, or determinations to take action, for the SDGs. Then, Safa, Souad, and Katar el Nada read excerpts from the assignments of Katarina Malatinova, Milota Mucolova, Natalia Jaworska, Lucia Sandlnova, Katarina Kricikova, Sebastian Pawlik, Bianca Cicáková who attended the COIL cohort but could not make it to the event. The last stage of the event will be devoted to a debate between the audience and the speakers.  

The key takeaway from the students’ contributions is not to underestimate the importance of individual initiatives, illustrating the story of the Colibri or hummingbird: The forest is burning … The alarmed animals are watching, feeling powerless, except the smallest one, the Colibri who says: “I can’t watch this happen without doing anything!” The bird flies to the closest stream, carries a drop of water, and throws it on the fire. It keeps repeating the same action again and again, as lively as possible. Bigger animals are still watching helplessly, thinking that the efforts of this little bird are useless in front of a big fire. Without stopping, the Colibri says: “I am doing my part; I will do the best possible to save my land.”

What is of great interest to us, as educators, is that many students expressed their amazement (one of them used the word “shock”) on how the SDGs are not part of official programs, at least in the educational institutions that are part of this Erasmus+ project. What I mostly enjoyed in this experiment was the students’ raised awareness and determination to spread the word about SDGs; some of them said that they had already started talking about this topic with their relatives and friends, and for me, as an educator, this is the most rewarding experience. For this reason, the next COIL cohort will focus on SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing.

Sometimes the best ideas on how to approach the teaching about and analysing literary works come from our students themselves. In my classes, they are encourage to come up with interactive activities focused on various aspects of literary works, and often they manage to pleasantly surprise me when they create either wonderful and insightful presentations or even games based off given texts. Their ideas, in turn, inspire me to develope them into lesson plans as a part of our project, so they in the furure even other teachers can benefit from them.

So today I want to express thanks to a number of students from CPU whose work I turned into lesson plans for this project and I want to acknowledge their authorship.

The first one is Ivana Kasalová who created a presentation on ecological themes in Wordsworth’s sonnet "The world is too much with us" and suggesting the idea that students and pupils learning about it can either try to create posters reflecting the timeless main message of the sonnet, or even try to write own poems to reflect on the impact of human activity, mainly industrialization, on nature in our days.

Another groups of students, Diana Ďuriková, Lucia Koszorúová, and Veronika Kupková, created a whole complex boardgame based on the reading of Charles Dickens’s novella "The Christmas Carol" accompanied with 60 questions payers have to answer as they progress along the board plan.

Last week I tried in practice my lesson plan called Death Penalty in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens on my English lesson as we are currently dealing with the topic of Crime and punishment. The students approached the topic creatively and provided reasonable and suitable arguments. I was positively surprised by their ideas and mature judgement in the last activity organized in groups in which they were supposed to act as judges and decide on an appropriate type and length of punishment for the selected crimes. In the follow-up discussion they compared their opinions and their exchange resulted in some suggestions for the improvement of the current legal system.

My colleague on another lesson tried with her group only the last activity in groups and she had positive feedback as well. Therefore, I recommend the last activity from the lesson plan to be used also as a separate activity for either a lesson of Civics, a common English lesson, or a lesson of Conversation.

Six COIL sessions on the topic of Postcolonial literature, led by dr. Martina Juričková from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, took place between October and November 2023. The project combined teachings from the subjects of Literature, History, and Civic education, with the students working with two texts, Rudyard Kipling’s poem Overland Mail and Louise Bennett’s Colonization in Reverse. 

Through a series of group tasks, the students broadened their knowledge of the issues of colonization and decolonization, their effects on both the native population and the colonizers, and learned more about the selected writers, the histories of India and Jamaica, as well as immigration and its relation to the current situation concerning world immigration waves. The tasks consisted of group discussions and research of the assigned topics, as well as close reading and analysis of the poems. The students were thus able to develop both their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, but also their collaboration skills in an international environment.

Between October and November 2023, Annaba University, Algeria, with professor Fella Benabed in the lead, organized a COIL project titled Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), consisting of six online workshops.

Each session focused on a different type of sustainability, the first one introducing its four pillars and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The others focused on human, social, economic, and environmental sustainability, and the last session discussed global peace and partnership. The participants, consisting of university and grammar school students from Algeria, Slovakia, and Hungary, experienced activity-oriented lessons with focus on reception, production, interaction, and self-reflection, all designed to help them get inspired and learn various strategies of making their lifestyles friendlier to our planet from all possible angles. 

Most of the students admitted to not being familiar with the principles presented in the sessions before participating, and afterwards many shared that they loved discussing things they had learned during the workshops with people around them, and were feeling motivated to start living more sustainably.

The last workshop of 2023 took place on December 14, led by Bc. Linda Bernadič from Evanjelické Gymnázium J. Tranovského in Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia. This Art and Literary Workshop focused on the book Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss and let the students explore its different themes and ideas. The activities and discussions stimulated the students’ creativity, helping them envision their own dreams, future goals and ambitions in a fun, supportive environment.

A workshop titled Poetry and Music - The legacy of Blues Music in Blues Poetry, organized by dr. Pop Titus and dr. Lászlóffy Zsolt of Partium Christian University, Romania, took place on November 9, 2023. The workshop focused on the interconnectedness between a musical pattern (call-and-response pattern) and a poetic genre (blues poetry). It introduced how blues music emerged as a genre due to the appropriation of African heritage and how this music influenced the Harlem Renaissance movement. The students listened to blues music and read selected poems, discussed the impact the music had on the new poetic genre of blues poetry, and were able to learn how strongly can a particular style of music impact a whole socio-cultural movement.

A second workshop related to British traditions, titled British Christmas symbols – hands-on-activities: Christmas decorations, took place on December 5, 2023, organized by dr. Iwona Gryz of Radom University, Poland. The workshop sought to consolidate the students’ knowledge of British culture through different hands-on activities and the Multi-Sensory Teaching Method. While listening to and singing popular British Christmas songs, the students made Christmas decorations that portrayed the chosen elements of British culture in teams, their different senses being engaged throughout the activity.

On December 4, 2023, dr. Iwona Gryz from Radom University, Poland, led an online workshop titled Exploring British culture: "Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. The workshop explored elements of British culture centered around the Christmas time through Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol by using various ICT tools, such as Kahoot!, Learning Apps, AnswerGarden, and more. The students were able to learn about British culture and traditions and at the same time revise different aspects of grammar. Their final task was oriented towards their problem-solving skills and teamwork - through the Five Cards Flick Stories tool, the students had to come up with their own solutions as to how they would change the main character of the story, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Dr. Iwona Gryz from Radom University, Poland, led an online workshop titled Story-telling with the use of ICT on November 30, 2023. The workshop introduced the students to the interactive tool StoryBird, used to create short stories, comics, poetry and more, online. The focus was on how the students can improve their foreign language skills through the technique of story-telling, as well as to enhance their knowledge of British culture and literature. At the end the students worked in groups, using StoryBird to create their own short stories, showcasing their teamwork and creativity.