Intercultural Student Exchange Erasmus Project

Project Title

Intercultural Student Exchange

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: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

We, Coláiste Bride, would like to initiate an exchange programme between our school and a school in Italy. Coláiste Bride proudly offers Italian as a curricular subject and we would like to link with a school in Italy in order to further strengthen the language in our school. We decided to apply for this project last year (2019) and we have spent the past year finding our school in Italy, organising a Junior language exchange and retaining links throughout with our partner school. Our project aims to enable students to explore the Italian language and culture in context and to forge strong links with peers in an Italian school. We aim to create a project that is inclusive and gives an opportunity to all of our language students to further their studies and learn about Italy. We aim to start with a small number of participants (up to 20 students for each school = 40 students in total) in the first year. We would hope to expand the number of participants going forward. The participating students from Coláiste Bride will be students of Italian who are in 2nd or 3rd year (and aged between 13-15 approximately). The reason for this selection is that firstly, the partner school in Italy has a similarly aged cohort. Secondly, we feel that 2nd year students can often lose their motivation and need guidance on how to study well. Also, 3rd year students are in an important study year and we feel that they, too, will benefit greatly from the trip. Finally, if we can motivate our Junior students to study languages, specifically Italian, then we can increase the numbers of 5th year students opting for Italian in the Senior Cycle.

Our project is a 2-week exchange from Dublin to Corbetta, Italy and back. In the first week the Irish students will travel to Italy. There they will attend school with their Italian counterparts and discover Corbetta and the surrounding areas in the afternoons and evenings. They will go on activities such as: visits to museums, visits to important historical and architectural sites, visits to Milan including the famous ‘Duomo’, visits to Lombardy and the area including ‘Lago di Como’. All of these trips will incorporate an element of cross-curricular activity as students discover Italy through Art, History, Geography and Language. In the second week, the Irish students will accompany the Italian students back to Dublin. For this part of the exchange the Italian students will be accommodated in a hotel in Clondalkin near our school. During the Dublin leg of the trip, the Italian students will join the Irish students in Coláiste Bride for classes in the mornings. These classes include English, Italian, PE, SPHE, Art, History etc… It will be organised in a way that gives the Italians a good insight into our curriculum as there are many subjects that don’t exist in Italy (eg. SPHE, CSPE and Home Economics). In the afternoons, the Italian and the Irish students will go on cultural trips (into Dublin city centre) such as: visits to see the old streets of Dublin including the Grafton Street area and Trinity College, visit to the Natural History Museum (Decorative Arts) in Collins Barracks, visit to the GAA museum and Croke park, visit to Google headquarters in the IFSC, visit to the National Gallery of Ireland (to show the students a Caravaggio painting) and finally a visit to the Phoenix Park. In the evenings there will be activities in the school including a sports evening and an evening of Irish music and traditional dancing. We also hope to get parents on board to host a family dinner for the Italian students and teachers.

With the help of other members of staff and students, our methodology would include a communicative approach. The Italian students would improve their English language through immersion in activities and school life. There will not be specific English classes for the Italians as we would prefer that they join our students in class and are not excluded from native lessons. In Italy, we hope that our students would also be able to join in classes and improve their Italian through a communicative approach.

We feel that the short term benefits would be that students would show a greater interest in the language and improve their basic conversation skills. We would also hope that these students would do well in their Junior Cert exams on their return. We hope that longer term benefits will see students choosing Italian to study for their Leaving Certificate and continuing to show an interest and appreciation in the language. Finally, we think that all participating students will return with increased self-confidence and motivation.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 45808 Eur

Project Coordinator

Colaiste Bride & Country: IE

Project Partners

• fondazione istituto san girolamo emiliani