Window to the European Union- Guidebook about Germany,Poland, Iceland and Turkey. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Window to the European Union- Guidebook about Germany,Poland, Iceland and Turkey.

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

During the project we created a guidebook which covers information about the participating countries. Now, the guidebook can be used by not participating school classes to learn about the partner schools and their countries.

The project was split into five phases:

Phase1: a)Expectations and knowledge about the other countries’ culture;
b)EU-basic information about bodies and institutions; advantages of the EU for its inhabitants;

Phase 2: Social lives of students from participating countries and legal age for young people (age of majority, rights and liabilities connected with it, free time activities, hobbies);

Phase 3: School types of the participating countries (from preschool to university); showing opportunities after graduating from a vocational school (searching the available workplaces on the local labour market etc)

Phase 4: The most important religious and national holidays of each country;

Phase 5: Evaluation of the project, comparing the expectations about the countries with the experienced reality;

During the phases 1-4, students created learning material about the different topics and presented it to the project partners during the mobility meetings (short-term visits of the parnter countries). Mobility meetings took place at the end of the phase 2 – 4.

Furthermore, class attendances, visits related to the training places for the vocational courses and sightseeing activities took place, too. One impressive and teaching sightseeing activity was, for example, the visit of the memorial in Auschwitz, Poland. Being at that place with students and teachers from different European countries demonstraded the importance of the EU. At the same time, being at that place as one group symboled all the positive developments which have taken place in Europe during the last decades. Furthermore, the students and teachers visited German training companies to learn about the German Dual System and the posibilities and challenges of the European labour market during the meeting in Germany.

The students stood in youth hotels. Whenever possible, students form different countries were mixed in the hotel rooms to have as many situations for communication as possible. During each mobility meeting a dinner at a host family’s house was organized for the participants by the host country. It helped students to observe a real-life situation in a host family and gave the chance to taste different kinds of food.

At application time we planned to send 63 people in total (45 students and 18 teachers) to the mobility meetings (short-term visits of the parnter countries). We outperformed that number: We were able to have 78 mobilities in total (58 students and 20 teachers).

The teachers and the students worked in an international team and improved their intercultural and language skills during the project. All of the students were visiting vocational schools and preparing to start working after leaving school. They were aged between 16 – 21 years, several students had an immigration backround.

The students had contact with partner students via facebook, e-mail or WhatsApp before and after mobility meetings. Before each meeting the students had to contact each other to gain information for the introduction which took place on the first day of each meeting. The students always had to introduce students from another country to the whole group.

Because of all the above mentioned activities, participating students and teachers could learn about the culture and everyday-life situations of the participating countries as well as the EU and its importance. The different school types and educational systems, opportunities after graduating from a vocational school, national holidays and traditions, the social lives of the students as well as age of majority and rights and liabilities were the topics.

At the beginning of the project a project website was created. Information about the different phases, including the learning material for each phase and photos are available on that website. Furthermore, the worked out guidebook can be downloaded from the website: http://erasmus.zsot.lubliniec.pl/

By this project, we aimed that participants learned about the opportunities of the EU, the European values, cultures, languages and importance of education for working in the EU. Many students gained their first international experiences because of the project.

This project
+ improved the students’ language skills and intercultural skills,
+ improved students’ ICT skills,
+ improved and increased the mobility of students and educational staff across the EU,
+ enhanced the partnerships between schools in different European Union countries,
+ improved pedagogical approaches and school management for the teachers.

We are happy that the partners consisted of countries from different regions with different religions and cultures as well as different economical power. Our partnership illustra

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 82990 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hans-Boeckler-Schule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Tækniskólinn – skóli atvinnulífsins
• MANISA MESLEKI ve TEKNIK ANADOLU LISESI
• Technikum nr 2