YOUNG EUROPEAN STUDENTS JOIN IN SINGING AND MUSIC MAKING Erasmus Project

Project Title

YOUNG EUROPEAN STUDENTS JOIN IN SINGING AND MUSIC MAKING

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: Inclusion – equity; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Music is an important part of youth culture and assumes the role of communication medium among young people of any age internationally. Sharing the basic characteristics of globally appreciated media of communication is also true for English, students’ first foreign language in the project’s partnership schools. As teenagers of all age levels are highly interested in music and discussing their hobbies with peers locally and worldwide, a European partnership based on Music and English as communication media can open up resources of cognitive and social potentials significant for young students’ experiences of the socio-cultural world. Correspondingly, the three partner schools from Germany, Greece and Spain foster learning in multicultural contexts related to their heterogeneous student intake, aged 11 – 13, from different social, ethnic, cultural backgrounds including special needs in learning.

Referring to the U.N. concept of global education the framework of the project is built on the development of students’ reflective and pragmatic communicative abilities in both Music and English, through real and virtual interaction in multicultural settings. In the context of Music and English this means that abilities to be developed will focus on competences referring to the acquisition of knowledge and communication transfer on the diverse European socio-cultural norms and standards, individual and national cultures, and the conditions of everyday-life in partner countries. Students will learn about, firstly, select and exchange their own musical preferences under the theme of “My music – Your Music”; secondly, music in the context of partner cultures and, thirdly, musical instruments.

The project partnership will be composed of students aged 11-13, from Comprehensive School Secondary Classes in Germany, primary school classes in Greece and Spain. The number of student participants will amount to 75, the number of teacher participants closely involved will amount to 6. All the partner classes are multicultural and multilingual, as each of them has a substantial number of students from different social and ethnic backgrounds or involve special needs support. The project teachers’ special expertise relates to Music, English, Mainstream Languages, Social Sciences, Arts and Crafts, and Special Needs Support. While the project coordinating school has long-term experiences in the successive coordination of Comenius / ERASMUS+ school projects, its two other partner schools are new to the ERASMUS scheme.

Project activities have been designed in consideration of the three educational areas of cognitive enhancement; emotive, analytical and reflective augmenting; action ability development in complex multicultural situations. Learning activities are based on the three modules “My favourite song”, “Old songs new for us”, and “Our songs” focussing on students’ introduction into the partnership’s social network and stepping into online communication; knowledge enrichment of music and song and practices of intercultural communication; and singing, orchestrating, performing and producing projects’ tangible outcomes, e.g. a multilingual perennial calendar, a song booklet and a video production. Students will be set up in whole group, small group work and partner teamwork both during local schools’ classroom settings and partners’ LTTA exchange meetings with peers.

As the general focus of Music tuition lies on the vocal and instrumental production of music and sounds, i.e. the development of individual musical abilities to produce, interpret, the methods employed will concentrate on students’ aptitude to enhance their emotive and cognitive abilities to listen to and to make music, to acquire knowledge about music as a cultural product, supported by the gathering and processing of information. Concerning the language learning processes in the English language, which are related to communicative strategies including multicultural abilities, language learning competencies, and textual and media competencies, the cooperatively applied methods will be based on the acquisition of competences relating to communication processes, e.g. supported through language patterns, and expressive musical patterns with sound compositions, in a multicultural and multilingual context.

Regarding the goals of global sustainable development in education this project will provide a source basis for innovative curricular activities concerning students’ transferable competence development in the fields of diversity of music and song, and English, as transcultural media of understanding. It will function as a gate-opener towards cultural equality through communication and literacy as well as IT technology. It is expected that the promotion of creativity, particularly through Music and Song, as well as English, will enhance students’ cognitive and interactive communication competences of production, reception, and reflexion in both Music and English.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 6000 Eur

Project Coordinator

Integrierte Gesamtschule Hannover-Linden & Country: DE

Project Partners

• CEIP SANTISIMA TRINIDAD
• 11th Primary School of Argyroupolis