Be In My Shoe-Cooperative Project Work for Developing Cultural Competencies Erasmus Project

Project Title

Be In My Shoe-Cooperative Project Work for Developing Cultural Competencies

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The project was implemented with the cooperation of four countries, Hungary, Spain, Italy and Poland. Our main objectives were the internationalisation of our schools and to develop intercultural competencies. The expression ‘Be in my Shoe’ in the title of the project refers to our concept that the European Union is a multicolour community of different nations and the future generations need to accept cultural differences to be successful in this multicultural environment.
We involved 10-15-year-old students. We focused on culture and it gave us the possibility to involve numerous teachers who are not language educators. Beside English teachers, music, art, ICT, PE, and history teachers supported the children.
During the project we performed activities in several fields of culture including music, folklore, art, cuisine, sport and games and history. We organized four mobilities, one in each country. Each student meeting was preceded by a preparation phase. The participants did research on the culture of the host country and edited a Google Slide presentation cooperatively. We made four presentations titled ’Discover Hungary’, ’Welcome to Spain’ ’Souvenirs from Italy’ and ’Immerse in Poland’. The students also made a show that characterised their country or school.
During the meetings, the students took part in various activities in order to learn about the culture of the host country, such as making crafts, learning a piece of music or folk dance, visiting attractions and cooking. They also joined the local school life and participated in lessons. The students worked in mixed groups, therefore they had to cooperate and deal with difficulties originated from their cultural differences.
On each occasion, we organized a public farewell party where anyone interested could join, such as other students, parents, local representatives. On these occasions the students performed a Cultural Talent Show. Craft and art works made during the mobility were also displayed.
We used contemporary pedagogical approaches. In Hungary, we introduced the Hungarian adaptation of Complex Instruction approach of the Stanford University. It provided a useful model to work with culturally heterogeneous groups and doing cooperative teamwork. In Spain we focused on gaining real life experiences through Project Based Learning. Innovative ICT tools enriched our project in Italy, such as Coding, Lego Robots, Scratch. Finally, Poland completed our toolbar with practical examples of Formative Assessment. The workshops included presentations to explain the theoretical background, interactive activities and model lessons to study the practical implementation. As a result, we built a complex methodology using the elements of all approaches. The participating teachers are enthusiastic to integrate these new elements into their lessons.
The crisis caused by the SARS-CoV issued a challenge to us. During the quarantine period we extended our project with online cooperative activities. The last mobility hosted by Poland was a virtual meeting because we couldn’t realize it personally. We managed to execute a 5 days’ programme including all essential elements like presentations, craft, dance and cooking workshops, a teachers’ workshop and a Talent Show.
Our learning outputs and results are reflected in our final products. We edited four volumes of an online magazine titled: Discover Hungary, Enjoy Spain, Souvenirs from Italy and Immerse in Poland. They contain interviews, articles, videos and recipes written by the students and the teachers. Besides we made a Teacher’s Guide with practical teaching ideas. Our project website was created to publish information about the project.
We got feedback from the participants regularly. Our scheduled evaluation made it possible to prove the significant development of the participants’ intercultural, language and communicative competences. The detailed analysis can be found in the Final Evaluation Report. You can find the participants’ opinion in the online magazines as well. When we read their writings we can see that they learnt to tolerate and appreciate the different cultures.
In the long term the schools intend to integrate the new pedagogical tools into their curriculums, therefore they can offer higher quality education to the students. The students became more interested and motivated in language learning and international cooperation and it promotes their further possibilities in the higher education. According to the parents’ opinion the international projects represent an added value for the school. We expect that it will influence our future reputation, and the number of students will increase. The school management established new contacts, Felsőtárkány Primary School and Zawoja agreed on a Twin School Partnership. We will look for the possibilities of the future cooperation with the other partners as well because our partnership was fruitful.

Project Website

https://www.beinmyshoe.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 118242 Eur

Project Coordinator

Felsötárkányi Általános Iskola és Alapfokú Müvészeti Iskola & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa nr 2 im. ks. Kardynala Karola Wojtyly w Zawoi
• I.C.Elvira Castelfranchi
• CEIP INFANTA LEONOR