It’s Time to Talk Erasmus Project

Project Title

It’s Time to Talk

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; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The project partners know that we must allow young people to learn the benefits of European collaboration. We have considered that recent events in Europe threaten the progress that has been made in recent years through collaborative international educational projects. We also recognise that young people need to develop communication and social skills and that social media is having a detrimental effect on young people’s mental health and self esteem. We will use European languages to combat these social problems and employ a holistic approach to language learning. We believe that through learning new languages whilst making new friends from around Europe, young people can become more confident, improve their communication skills and have a better understanding of European cultural heritage. With more confidence, improved communication skills and a better understanding of different European languages, young people will be more employable, will be more resilient to cope with challenges throughout their lives, and will have the key skills they need to achieve their goals. Participating staff will have the chance to watch other professionals teach and therefore learn new methodologies, whilst improving their own language skills as well. They will improve their language teaching skills and will be more confident to deliver a wider variety of European languages in the primary classroom; this is a main priority in the current development of the New Curriculum in Wales. All these results will work to raise the profile of learning languages and make our young people the confident linguists of tomorrow.
During each pupil exchange visit, project partner schools in Wales, Portugal and Italy will deliver language lessons to a class of pupils made up of pupils from each partner school. Pupils will experience attending school in another country, learn more about life in other European countries, and develop more understanding of the similarities and differences between life, culture and language in the partners countries involved. Participants will visit sites of cultural importance and meet new people in order to learn more about the culture of the country they visit and will use these experiences to practice new language patterns they have learnt throughout the project; this will provide them with real life learning experiences and the chance to know why learning other European languages is so vital and valuable.
Staff will support their colleagues in each partner school to learn and employ the new strategies they have shared during the project. Staff will also carry out action research to discover new ideas and improve the provision in all schools involved. Practitioners will research the use of different learning environments, triple literacy, pupil led learning, outdoor learning, and a wide variety of new methodologies used in the teaching of languages. Staff will carry out lesson observations, pupil surveys, coaching and mentoring, and use team teaching in order to improve their practice.
Our project will work to strengthen international collaboration and networking in line with the UK National Agency’s drive to encourage ‘people across the UK to have the chance to study, train or volunteer abroad’ and for ‘UK organisations to collaborate on international projects’. UK Country-Specific Recommendations (paragraph 3.1) of the Europe 2020: UK National Reform Programme, addressed to the UK by the European Union, calls for the UK to ‘take action to further reduce the number of young people with low basic skills’.
Portuguese government priorities outlined in the Southern European Union Countries Summit on 28th January 2017 are unity, cohesion and deepening European integration. The Lisboa Declaration signed at that summit outline the goal of achieving ‘a brighter future for the younger generations through education’ and ‘the hope to have the UK as a close partner of the EU’. Our project will directly impact on these priorities due to its collaboration between many European countries and its focus on developing pupils’ lifelong learning skills. The focus on lifelong learning and employability also works to support the national priorities of Italy. Young people in Italy are currently finding the labour market very difficult, however the skills that pupils learn, and the outlook on life they will develop during this collaborative project will continue to impact their life and opportunities, including their ability to persevere and transfer skills to various contexts. This improves our children’s employability and therefore their future prospects.
Finally, all of the opportunities provided by the project for our learners and teachers mean that the project will work to impact on several of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development agreed by world leaders in September 2015. Namely ‘quality education’, ‘reduced inequalities’, and ‘peace, justice and strong institutions’.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 131555 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sully Primary School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Istituto Comprensivo di Porto Viro
• Istituto Comprensivo Pescara 5
• Agrupamento de Escolas Fernando Casimiro Pereira da Silva