A Shared Time for Reading in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

A Shared Time for Reading in Europe

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Context
Our partner schools from Ireland, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania and Finland know each other from a previous project during which we had focussed especially on employability in the EU Job market. During that project we realised the important link between employability and literacy. Our students faced similar problems in literacy when they had to write reports etc. We started to discuss national teaching methods and ideas on how to improve literacy and came up with the idea of this project „A shared time for reading in Europe“ and the creation of an international newspaper.
The report “Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes“ published by the European Commission in 2012 encouraged us with our approach. It highlights the importance of improving basic skills, with literacy as a key component, in order to boost growth and competitiveness in the EU market and in order to provide the right skills for employability. This report also stresses the importance of improving foreign language learning and ICT skills in order to further increase the levels of employability. We address all these skills with our project.

Objectives
Our objectives are to increase the motivation of our students to acquire good basic skills in literacy, foreign language learning and ICT and to introduce them to ways to use these in an interesting and innovative way.

Participants
The participants were pupils and teachers in our six schools. All schools except the one from Finland knew each other from a previous Comenius project.

Description of undertaken main activities
The students participated as part of a multi-cultural, European group of editors. The main activity was the creation of the international newspaper and the corresponding articles.
The highlight of these activities were short-term mobilities. During these international visits a “shared reading time“ served to study the articles written by the national editor teams. Their content was discussed in small international groups and put into a European context. The students worked together, enhanced their ICT skills, overcame obstacles, such as language barriers and learned communication and cooperation skills. Finally a “press conference“ was held during which further questions were asked and the editors had a chance to reflect their article.
During further workshops the students worked for example on the layout of the front page, the logo and rules of conduct when writing articles.
Staying in host families and visiting other European schools brought an element of intercultural awareness and tolerance to our students that we cannot provide in the classroom alone.
The teachers visited classes/workshops and experienced other schools and new methodologies and pedagogical approaches, particularly in relation to methodologies to improve literacy, foreign language learning and ICT skills.

Results and impact
The final product is an international newspaper written by students which is available for everybody for example on our school homepages. Furthermore there is a blog for the project (https://asharedtimeforreadingineurope.blogspot.com/).
The students put themselves with high motivation in the role of editors. They studied and wrote articles and successfully realised other necessary work when creating a newspaper.
The “shared reading time“ and “press conferences“ were used for a lively discussion and successful communication (in the foreign language). Furthermore not only the students but also their families and the school community have stressed the intercultural experiences made during this project.

Long-term benefits
By presenting the results and experiences on our homepages, during meetings etc. interest has aroused and we hope to have provided an impulse to repeat this kind of project or to use its results.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 162315 Eur

Project Coordinator

Erich-Gutenberg-Berufskolleg Köln & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Marijampoles marijonu gimnazija
• Pyörön koulu
• Instituto de Educación Secundaria la Creueta
• Enseignement Secondaire Diocésain de Saint-Remacle, Liege ASBL
• Loreto Community School