Getting to know each other Erasmus Project

Project Title

Getting to know each other

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: Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Creativity and culture; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

The aim of the partnership is to encourage both schools to collaborate and help each other to enhance pupils confidence in using a foreign language and improve cultural understanding. We believe that working together will help us to develop more effective methods to deal with and improve upon pupils´ low achievement in basic skills and knowledge and will help to convince staff at both establishments of the benefits of international cooperation. Learning from one another is a key aspect of this project, where we will share good practice of cooperative learning techniques and embed what we learn in our everyday teaching and learning based on the key ethical values that underpin our respective institutions.

An important part of this project focuses on the collaborative work of the students and teachers who will take part in the transnational element of the project. Students and teachers will be sharing through the eTwinning platform, but we consider it necessary to plan opportunities for this collaborative work to be done physically to give it a real sense of purpose and outcome hence the transnational visits. In the learning, teaching or training activities both schools will work in mixed groups of pupils aged between 14-18 years old. Pupils will deepen their learning and understanding of other cultures and will improve their social, linguistic and language competences. Teachers will observe and assess the development of pupils during these activities.

We will use a range of activities and methodologies to plan and implement the project for staff and pupils. At the heart of these will be an emphasis on cooperative learning informed by:
– Collecting data about our students’ linguistic competence from both schools and faculties.
– Gathering ideas from our key stakeholders through student and teacher discussions, eTwinning, surveys
– The project leaders will prepare the proposal for the project
– The proposal will be presented to the Head Teachers and Governors and any amendments will be made.
– A presentation will be made to the teachers involved to gain approval
– the project will be presented to the students and undertaken
– the project will be evaluated through observations, surveys and questionnaires.

This innovative project will also have a positive effect on the participating institutions. Its impact will persist far beyond the EU grant. It will contribute to improve pupils´ linguistic and communication skills. It will also give teachers a clear working plan and teaching strategies in relation to developing linguistic competence through cooperative learning. We are firmly committed to sharing our experiences and findings and promoting our project to others. We are convinced that coordination and cooperation among the teachers can lead to the development of basic skills among the pupils. If the results are encouraging, our project would be easy to be transferred and exploited in regional, national, European and international level as it has scalability and can be adapted to different institutions. Dissemination of the results and workings of the project are a key feature of our planning and will be targeted at a number of audiences both within and outside our schools and both locally and nationally. We intend, if successful to ensure the sustainability of our project through continued collaboration using eTwinning as a vehicle.

In our view, there has never been such an imperative to broaden tolerance and understanding of other languages, peoples, cultures and traditions within the EU as there is today: this project is of vital importance to the young people of Cornwall in navigating their way through a potential post- Brexit Britain. As MFL teachers, we are committed to keeping the vibrancy and relevance of our subject alive to young people and future educators who may be less inclined to see its relevance in this rapidly changing world in which we live.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 0 Eur

Project Coordinator

Cornwall Education Learning Trust & Country: UK

Project Partners

• IES Zaframagón