ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP FOR SUSTAINABLE LEARNING Erasmus Project

Project Title

ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP FOR SUSTAINABLE LEARNING

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Active Citizenship for Sustainable Learning is a three-year ERASMUS+ strategic school partnership. It involved eight secondary schools from Croatia, England, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Spain. The latter cater for pupils of diverse ethnic and cultural origins. Most of these learners come from underprivileged families with low opportunities for learning, travelling and self-educating. They often lack motivation, ignore the importance of foreign languages and ICT in the labour market. Many of these learners usually give up when they face difficulties and often leave school early without any qualification. Therefore, our partnership will primarily focus on these learners.

On the one hand, we first intended to enhance our learners’ motivation and investment in learning thanks to ICT, to offer them an opportunity to acquire oral communication skills in foreign languages and to develop entrepreneurial skills. On the other hand, we wanted to offer them an opportunity to meet their European neighbours, to discover European cultures in native place and to put forward their own culture, to develop intercultural skills, and thus, to build their European citizenship.

To implement our partnership and hit our objectives we shared tasks amongst us according to each other’s experience and expertise. We compared our teaching methods, exchanged our practices and combined our know-how. Besides, a five-day ICT workshop was organized for teachers in Lithuania in January 2016. They learnt how to use a variety of ICT tools (eg Evernote, Blendspace) and two digital skills training approaches: the creation of digital stories (Storybird, Storyjumper). They also learnt how to use pictures, videos, flash animation, smart phones and tablets, how to implement a flipped classroom model and to place and to share all created materials on a dynamic project website. Moreover, four transnational project meetings were organized. These meetings offered teachers the possibility to observe classes abroad and to compare. Finally, they practiced foreign languages and got familiar with the European cultural diversity.

As regards to our learners, we first made preliminary assessments and rated our pupils’ comfort/ability level on a number of skills. Based on the results we created small groups that blended abilities and backgrounds, and incorporated team-building activities carefully adapted to their abilities and possibilities. Besides, we had them complete tasks that involved using and developing ICT and oral communication skills that they would likely use in their future professional life. Moreover, we chose assignment topics and tasks that were related to the real world, and could be connected to our learners’ lives and environment. Finally, they participated in three ten-day active citizenship language camps which were organized in three different partner countries. These meetings put them in authentic communication situations amongst other European learners of their age, offered them good opportunities to develop team spirit, to gain sense of responsibility, to high up their self-confidence and self-esteem, to enlarge their cultural horizons and to foster tolerance.

To ensure the efficiency of our strategy, various evaluation tools were developed and used. Communication between partners via Zoom.us and WhatsApp were frequent to ensure the best follow up of the partnership activities. To disseminate our results we created a Facebook page, a YahooGroup and a YouTube channel and published articles in the local and regional press. All results and outputs of our project have been shared freely on the project website www.ac4sl.eu so that learners and teachers in Europe and around the world could get inspired by them. An international conference was held in Paris in May 2018 to officially disseminate our outputs. To sustain our partnership and its results we have agreed to continue our cooperation beyond the three years of the project via E-twinning and construct a sustainable development module to incorporate into the schools’ curriculum.

As a result, this partnership not only helped our learners, about five hundred, to acquire new skills in ICT, foreign languages, entrepreneurial and intercultural skills and to build their European citizenship, but has raised their future social inclusion chances as well. Teachers involved, around sixty, were given the opportunity to develop their language and intercultural skills and to have learnt how to incorporate innovative digital teaching tools in their practices and how to make their classes more engaging and more challenging for their pupils.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 410909 Eur

Project Coordinator

COLLEGE GEORGES POMPIDOU & Country: FR

Project Partners

• New College Durham Academies Trust
• IES ANTONIO GARCÍA BELLIDO
• Neringos gimnazija
• I.C. di Corniglio
• SCHOOL OF PALEKASTRO
• Kwidzynskie Stowarzyszenie Oswiatowe
• Strojarska tehnicka skola Osijek