CLIL4ALL Intensive Week: TECH FAIR at Université Jean Monnet – Saint-Etienne

The first CLIL4ALL intensive week at the Université Jean Monnet de Saint-Etienne (UJM), organised by its two Institutes of Technology, brought together 35 students and 15 lectures from the 5 universities in the CLIL4ALL project consortium from 14 to 18 October 2024.

Based on a programme devised and coordinated by Muriel Fabrèges, Julien Strignano and Antoine Pelicand (UJM), the aim of the event was to celebrate a Tech Fair bringing together international students from management and event communication backgrounds and students from technical and scientific backgrounds who had designed innovative products. The common denominator of these achievements in university laboratories is sustainable development (solar panels, eco-designed furniture, portable wind turbines, robots, etc.)*.

Internationalisation, sustainable development and the creation of a Tech Fair were the three main areas of work for the seven student teams. The use of the English language in the four keynotes given by the teaching team and during the workshops is the concrete result of the experimentation of this CLIL programme as a medium for specific purposes. In the context of very precise specifications. The students worked with a local company in Saint-Etienne, Standing Concept, to produce their own communication materials for their stands. An evaluation of the pitches in terms of the linguistic tools and technical lexicon used, as well as the learning of content, particularly technical content, enabled the didactic and professional contribution of the English language to be quantified via focus group interviews with the students. Based on the data collected, a research article will be written.

This intensive week highlighted the synergy between students from different backgrounds who were happy to get together, to enjoy a cultural and intercultural experience in France, and finally to surpass themselves with the aim of offering the best promotion of the technical products for which they were responsible during an international event that was remarkably well attended and highly formative. New prospects for comparative studies based on the very positive results of this first event in Saint-Etienne await the students who will have the pleasure of taking part in the second intensive week at Karelia University of Applied Sciences in Joensuu, Finland next February.

Further reading: Students Share Their Journey at the TECH Fair Intensive Week 2024 Saint-Etienne