Partnership Tornbjerg / Champollion Erasmus Project

Project Title

Partnership Tornbjerg / Champollion

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Pedagogy and didactics; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Context:
The context of the project is that of two schools having already established a contact through a former exchange and having a desire to expand the project. The goal was to link twice in a row 2 different groups of 23 pupils through organising a regular correspondence and allowing a one-week stay in the partner’s city.
The Lycee Champollion is a general, technological and professional highschool with the “digital” official label. It provides education to 2000 students, who come from the suburban area of Montpellier, France. The families’social status is quite variable and heterogeneous. Students are aged from 15 to 21 years.
The Tornbjerg Gymnasium is a general highschool. Located in the suburban area of Odense Denmark, and provides courses to around 720 students. Familes’social status is very heterogeneous. 25% of the families are from foreign background. Students are aged from 16 to 21 years.
Through the first contact, we had been able to establish that the learners from the two countries frequently met difficulties in their target languages (French for the Danish students and English for the French students) and that they had predisposed ideas about the culture and customs of each other’s countries. Moreover the relationship teacher/student differs considerably in the two countries. Finally teachers and students in both institutions use the new information technologies and wished to develop this use as well as the educational tools which apply to these technologies.
Our project targeted second language learners (French for the Danish group and English for the French group) who had an important need for developing their language qualifications in their target language. In the French group, the students had chosen a literary branch (English is very important). Danish students’level in French was elementary.

The goals of the exchange were:
Our project aimed at developing the learners’ linguistic qualifications, improving their understanding of the different pedagogical tools available for teachers, their use of new technologies, their capacity to reflect on their own learning process, their ability to work in groups, their qualifications in making presentations and giving/receiving feedback from the other participants and their knowledge of another European culture.
Concerning the teachers: having the opportunity to observe different teaching methods in a different cultural context, to locate and analyse the differences and similarities in the pedagogical practices in both countries, to collaborate on and exchange didactical tools as well as reflections concerning teaching practices in foreign languages in general, to create new teaching tools and to develop an exchange platform on pedagogical practices during such exchanges.

The exchange allowed the following achievements:
-4 students mobilities – one week long each, twice in France, twice in Denmark – including: students’ hosting in local families / common works mixing French and Danish students / cultural site-seeing / Observation of and exchange about each-other’s school systems (observation of courses, common school indoor and outdoor activities, international co-teaching classes) / presentations to other students and families, exhibitions.
-2 teachers’stays in the partner’s city – 4 days long, one in each country – for 2 teachers in charge of the exchange in each country. Observation of teaching techniques, context and habits / Exchange of teaching methods / preparation of the students mobilities / creation of teaching material for the exchange and the following ones in the future.
Different linguistic activities have been developed during the exchange and the preparation time: quizzes, written and audiovisual productions, written and oral communicative activities and cultural visits in the target language. The teachers have worked on and improved their teaching methods and didactic tools by observing classes, sharing ideas and collaborating to the creation and the development of common activities and shared teaching material on a specific collaborative platform (website).
As for the learners, the exchange has represented an opportunity to discover another country in the European Community, and to develop their linguistic skills, their cultural openness, their learning autonomy, especially through language (and culture) immersion – and therefore genuine communication situations – the use of new technologies, didactic activities, written, oral, and audiovisual productions, mostly in teamwork situations.
They have therefore developed their teamwork experience in a demanding context, which represents a skill that is highly transferable to other learning or professional situations in the medium and long term, as is the development of their linguistic skills and learning autonomy.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 85315 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lycée JF Champollion & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Tornbjerg Gymnasium