Innovative projects Foreign language teaching and adult education Teachers’ innovative practices and personal experiences

The implementation of different technological tools in the teaching process has made the teaching-learning process more attractive for both teachers and students.

Next, some of them will be explained.

 Technology and innovative methods of teaching

The use of technology in the classroom helps to engage the students with different kinds of stimuli and creates an environment of activity-based learning. It makes the content of the classroom more interesting and makes learning fun.

 Teaching through Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality technology involves helping students learn through interactions with a 3D world. For instance, instead of taking the students through a boring history class, the teachers can use 3D technology to explore ancient civilizations, travel to distant countries for a class in geography or even take a trip to outer space during a class on science.

 Teaching through Smart Boards

Smart boards are an effective way to bring the classroom to life while helping students experience a deeper level of engagement and understanding. This is done by making the course content interactive and visual.

 Teaching through 3D printing technology

Teachers looking for innovative methods of teaching can also look at 3D printing as a means of teaching. This method is fast gaining global acceptance, especially in higher educational institutes where 3D printers are used to create prototypes and make complex concepts easy to understand.

Learning-based project

Project-Based Learning (ABP or PBL, Project-based learning) is a learning methodology in which students acquire an active role and academic motivation is favored. The method consists of carrying out a project usually in a group. This project has been previously analyzed by the teacher to ensure that the student has everything necessary to solve it, and that in their resolution they will develop all the skills they want.

The PBL model has seven characteristics.

1.Focuses the students on big open-ended question, change, or problem to research and respond to and/or solve

2.Brings what students should academically know, understand, and be able to do into the equation.

3.Is inquiry-based.

4.Uses 211st.century skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, among others.

5.builds student choice into the process

6.provides opportunities for feedback and revision of the plan and the project.

7.requieres students to present their problems, research process, methods and results.

Cooperative learning:

 the puzzle technique. Cooperative learning is a method that, based on teamwork, includes a set of techniques by which the student works together to achieve a series of common objectives (UPM, 2008). Johnson and Johnson (1991) consider cooperative learning as the instructive use of small groups for students to work together and make the most of their own learning and that derived from interrelation, while Kagan (1994) refers to a series of instructional strategies that include cooperative interaction between students on a subject, as an integral part of the learning process. For their part, Olanda et al. (2014), consider cooperative learning as an innovative teaching methodology in which the student takes an active part in the learning process, facilitating the acquisition of basic competences, along with other types of transversal competences that are highly demanded in current contexts, among others , teamwork, or the ability to argue and negotiate to reach a consensual solution. This type of learning presents a series of conditioning factors, such as the strong commitment of teachers, the structured definition of learning activities, the use of pedagogical strategies according to the cooperative approach, and the high degree of participation and collaboration of students (Hennessy and Murphy, 1999; Barkley, 2007): 3 This methodology focuses on five fundamental pillars: positive interdependence, individual responsibility, promoter interaction, appropriate use of social skills and group analysis, which are considered fundamental for any cooperation system. (Johnson and Johnson, 2009):

 1. Positive interdependence. It exists when group members perceive that they are linked to one another in a way that cannot be successful unless everyone is successful. It is considered the heart of cooperative learning.

2. Individual and group responsibility. It takes place when the activity is designed in such a way that each student is responsible for what he learns individually and for what he teaches, as well as what he learns from his classmates.

3. Promoter interaction, preferably face to face. It happens when members share resources and help, assist, encourage, and praise each other's efforts to learn.

 4. Social skills. It occurs when, having to build knowledge cooperatively, students have to learn to trust their peers, as well as to communicate properly and resolve conflicts constructively.

5. Group analysis. It exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintain effective working relationships. Groups need to describe which actions of each member are useful or not and make decisions about which behaviors they should follow and which should change, thus pursuing continuous improvement of the process.