Simulation Project 2.0: Electing the U.S. President in a Web-Based EFL Scenario. Task, Processes, Outcomes

Exploring topics that are personally relevant and interesting to young adult EFL learners remains a core challenge in language teaching. At the same time, the advent of fast-paced and informal online-communication through social media and web 2.0 applications has many repercussions for authentic language learning. The “U.S. Embassy School Election Project 2012” has addressed these questions by combining a close focus on the U.S. presidential election with an interactive project scenario. More than 1,400 students across Germany participated in this project and produced an election forecast for an assigned U.S. state based on a survey of regional news media and social network data. Their predictions were in many cases more accurate than those of major U.S. broadcasting networks. In this talk, exemplary tasks and processes from the project will be analyzed with regard to learner interpretations of and performance in web-based tasks. The data stem from the author’s doctoral research following a mixed-method design that includes a quantitative questionnaire survey as well as qualitative classroom data (interviews, learning journals, screen recordings, classroom recordings). Outcomes relevant for future applications and further learning contexts will be discussed.