Barcelona and Berlin – Life in two European metropoles – an investigation of challenges and solutions. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Barcelona and Berlin – Life in two European metropoles – an investigation of challenges and solutions.

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Project Title: Barcelona and Berlin – Living in two European Metropolises – Exploring Challenges and Approaches to Solutions
With this project, the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium Berlin and the Instituto Jaume Balmes Barcelona are starting a long-term cooperation in foreign language teaching (Spanish and German) for their students at secondary level 2.
The project combines elements of modern foreign language didactics with aspects of a holistic, personality-forming pedagogy. This is done by incorporating the following aspects:
1) Thematic aspect: Barcelona and Berlin are two European metropolises with very complex urban societies that are characterised by great diversity. This leads to a multitude of challenges for the people living there together. At the same time, metropolises are always laboratories for solutions that can be used to respond to such challenges. In the course of the project, the pupils research such projects in their home cities, present them to their project partners in texts on eTwinning and then explore them with their local exchange partners during their mutual visits. All experiences are fed into a joint audiovisual reportage, which is the creative end product of the project. We assume that this aspect of the content will have a motivational effect on the pupils, as it directly ties in with their experience, gives them the opportunity to contribute their own interests and is solution-oriented.
2) Foreign language didactic aspect: The texts developed in the course of the on-site explorations are used to achieve concrete foreign language didactic goals: a) a pupil-centred approach to mediation competence, i.e. the correct transfer of essential contents from a student’s second language into their first language. This is done on the basis of the texts which pupils (SuS) exchange and work on with each other via eTwinning. b) Using the same approach, the SuS also work on other relevant text concerns (articles, comments) and expand their repertoire of linguistic means in the foreign language.
3) Combining digital learning with local learning: We explore the potential of eTwinning to prepare and follow up concrete learning encounters between people and expect a motivating effect for our pupils through this integration of digital and analogue learning environments.
4) Inclusion of mindfulness: The content work in the languages and on the texts is flanked by the teaching of mindfulness techniques to the SuS and to the teachers accompanying the project. It is of interest to find out to what extent the scientifically proven stress-reducing and quality-of-life enhancing aspect of mindfulness has a concrete effect on individuals in everyday school life. The project participants are building on several years of experience in this field at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium.
The project is initiated by Dr. Adrian Bröking (Head of Spanish and trainer for mindfulness at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium) and Cristina Zamora (Head of German at the Instituto Jaume Balmes). Dr. Bröking is in charge of the project. The target group are high school students in Spanish (Berlin) and German (Barcelona). The project is scheduled for two school years (2019-20 and 2020-21). In the first school year, the project with all its components will be tested for its suitability. In the second school year, any necessary fine adjustments will be made and further experience gained. In the course of both school years, different groups of pupils interact. There are 12-20 SuS of both partner schools from the 11th school year working together, both virtually and during a visit to both cities. In addition to the school trips, there are two short-term advanced training courses in the first project year, in which all teachers involved in the project familiarise themselves with the mindfulness techniques, which are then taught to the students during the school trips.
Both schools hope that the project will enable them to enter into a trusting, long-standing school partnership that will enable them to further deepen their expertise in the teaching of foreign languages and motivate more pupils than before to continue learning the foreign language in the last two years of their schooling. Beyond these concrete foreign language didactic goals, SuS and the teachers of both schools also expect general impulses for their joint work by exploring the potential of mindfulness to provide resilience in hectic everyday school life.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65706 Eur

Project Coordinator

Friedrich-Ebert-Oberschule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Institut Jaume Balmes