According to the study of the market research company Turu-uuringute, 63% of Estonia's teachers are familiar [with] the website www.kutsekeel.ee, which contains teaching materials and links to e-courses, mediates news and encourages the founding and functioning of a teachers' network, Estonian Integration and Migration Foundation Our People (MISA) said in a statement, informs LETA.
The target group of the website are teachers and students of vocational schools, but also foreign language teachers, students, institutions of higher education, employers, professional associations and others.
According to the survey commissioned by the Integration and Migration Foundation Our People (MISA), compared to the previous survey carried out in 2011 the prominence of the website has increased by 13%.
The number of visits has also increased and the keenest users of the website are teachers whose work experience exceeds the average level.
"246 teachers of vocational schools took part in the survey and it focused on how widely the website is used within the main target group – that is, the teachers of vocational schools. With the support of the European Social Fund, the website has been running since 2008, and we wanted to find out how actively the teachers are using the website that is intended to aid them in their work," Jana Tondi, the head of MISA's Lifelong Learning Unit, commented.
"There are several reasons why some teachers are not using the website in their work. For example, eight per cent of them lack the training to carry out online tuition and 41 per cent admitted that they cannot really say why they're not using the additional teaching tools. A certain portion of teachers cannot find suitable materials from the kutsekeel.ee portal, but we are constantly updating the website and hope to make it more comprehensive in time," Tondi said.
She encouraged teachers to be more active in using free materials in their work and invited them to let MISA know which materials they would like to see in the portal in the future.
The most widely used section of the kutsekeel.ee environment continues to be learning materials, which are used by 89% of people surveyed. The portal is used by 38% of teachers for conducting language lessons and finding materials on methods. Compared to the previous survey, the use of the Russian version of the website has increased.
The survey was carried out with the support of the program 'Language Learning Development 2011-2013' of the European Social Fund.
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