Enhancement of cross-cultural competence by medial exchange based on the title character of the children’s book Flat Stanley. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Enhancement of cross-cultural competence by medial exchange based on the title character of the children’s book Flat Stanley.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

During the Erasmus+ conference in Bad Godesberg (2019), we became aware of the diverse opportunities for primary schools participating in Erasmus+. Due to the bilingual concept of our school, we have been looking for a suitable project for a long time, which represents both the international orientation of our school and a realization in regular primary school teaching.

Our project idea is based on the children’s book “Flat Stanley” by Jeff Brown. Due to a tragic accident, the title character “Stanley” is flattened and has ever since been using the advantages of his shape: he travels in an envelope and experiences unique adventures. The plan is that each school participating in the project will send a foldable, life-size Flat Stanley to all other schools. The “flat exchange students” spend a year abroad. The “exchange students” are integrated into the school life of all participating schools. They take part in lessons, experience school festivals and report on their experiences to the children in their home country on a regular basis. The students of all schools write reports regularly, create videos and document the everyday life of their schools in a variety of ways. In this way, a multimedia travel diary of all “Flat Stanleys” will be created step by step in our TwinSpace.

The story outline enables an extensive and flexible cultural exchange and at the same time it offers the children an identification figure through the main character “Flat Stanley”. The highlights of our project are the planned student mobilities, which should enable both, children and teachers, to have real international encounters and experiences. At this point, special attention is paid to those pupils who are disadvantaged due to socio-economic deficits and who would normally not be able to travel to other countries. As part of the planned student mobility, students and teachers visit the partner schools and experience everyday life at other European schools. Thematic focal points from the education plans of all countries will be given special consideration during the planned stays abroad (e.g. healthy diet, learning about Europe, sustainability and environmental protection).

Our project idea therefore enables us to link different areas of focus of our school work: bilingual learning (linguistic / foreign language aspect), media learning (meaningful integration of new media in the classroom) and the implementation of thematic content from the educational plans of the respective countries in terms of interdisciplinary learning. All project activities aim for the promotion of intercultural competence. In the course of the project, participating students from all partner schools should develop intercultural understanding, openness, tolerance and a sensitivity to common values in the EU by getting to know the everyday life of students of the same age group in other countries, making comparisons and gaining their own experiences abroad. Intercultural competence is an essential key qualification for today’s job market, so we want to place our everyday learning and work through our project idea in an international framework. By participating in Erasmus+, we would like to make a contribution to social cohesion within Europe, accentuate common values and contribute to the preservation of social, cultural and historical heritage. Our selected partner schools are located in Austria, Italy and Portugal (Madeira). All schools are very interested in a professional and methodical exchange and intend to further develop their knowledge and their schools through exchanges with other teachers at European level.
As the main dissemination tool of the project, a public area is to be set up in our twin space. The purpose of this is to inform all partners, interest groups and the general public about the progress of the project and to present increases in competence and multimedia learning results.
Those results include, among other things, self-designed Christmas cards, verbal, written, musical and artistic explanations of cultural customs of the individual country or the exchange of country-specific recipes to enable culture being experienced in a multi-sensual way. By media documentation we want to ensure a long-term use of the project results.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 109463 Eur

Project Coordinator

Grundschule Metternich-Oberdorf & Country: DE

Project Partners

• EB1/PEC Santo Amaro
• VS Dr. Jonas Kapfenberg
• IC CAVALLERMAGGIORE