Starring together in our film. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Starring together in our film.

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Access for disadvantaged; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

In the last few years migrations and the impact of heavy and sudden influx of people from the poorest and more troubled regions of Africa, from the East within the European community is resulting in serious integration problems, making it necessary to implement new social policies for inclusiveness that in education means new strategies and new teaching methods.
4 schools: Convitto Nazionale”Cotugno” from Italy, German Language School Goethe,from Bulgaria, LPO Fernand Renaudeau from France and Herman Hesse Oberschule, from Germany got together to work on the Erasmus + Project “Starring together in our film”.
We all believed that it would have been interesting to have our students think, investigate, study the issue in the history of their own country and then share the outcomes with their peers from other countries to better understand the reason of migrations, reduce intolerance and so being able to create more inclusive environments.
We wanted to understand
• if there was a European concurrence of opinions about this tricky subject,
• what did people actually think about migrants and what were the real intercultural relationships in the societies investigated,
• what the solutions for such a huge problem might have been,
• which contribution every country, every school, every subject teacher, every single student could give to help became more inclusive
• how teachers should be trained to deal with all the problems stemming out from the presence of foreign students in class
• how to form a generation of youths open to interculturalism.

The students worked in groups , with the help of their teachers on the issue of migration in their own country using the skills acquired studying history, geography, demography/statistics, cultural anthropology, following the perspective they thought more suitable (emigration to other countries or migration of different ethnic groups to their own country) and produced a screenplay using the creative writing technique and posters representing the main characters and settings.

All the activities devised led to the production of a script and a short film (max. 6 min.) on the topic of migrations and intercultural dialogue mirroring the various realities in the different countries involved.
The 4 short films were then assembled during the 4th meeting in Berlin after writing a brief canvas. New scenes were filmed to link and join the whole.
In the last meeting, in Italy, the short film was edited under the supervision of experts and screened to the public.
We believe the aim set at the beginning was achieved: to spread awareness of the theme within the diverse social environments in the hope to finally reach local and national government to influence social policies.
General achievements were:
• development and spread of new teaching methods even through the use of TIC
• an increase in the percentage of foreign students who gain school success
• an increase in the percentage of students who modify their behavior towards a more intercultural openness and willingness to share values
• development and spread, within each community, of an inclusive behavior
• development of more inclusive social policies by local government and institutions
Results achieved for teachers are:
• becoming able to use inclusive teaching methods to apply them in their usual teaching to increase students’ success in learning
• increasing teachers motivation, skills and use of foreign languages, mainly English
• knowing about the education systems in the partners’ countries, analyzing ways of solving problems which can be adapted to their own school contexts
• developing a closer cooperation with colleagues at schools: teachers of the same subject, of different subjects (interdisciplinary dimension) and from different countries (multi-cultural dimension)
Results achieved for students are:
• Openness to cultural otherness and other beliefs, world views, histories and practices
• Comprehension of the diversity of European cultures and different ways of life as an added value
• awareness of the phenomenon of migration from different perspectives
• acquisition of the skills of creative writing
•know how to carry on a historical /sociological research
• know how to use ICT to edit short films
• improvement in language competencies (mother tongue and English)
• widening their horizons, finding friends in other countries and enhancing tolerance towards different cultures.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 95918 Eur

Project Coordinator

Convitto Nazionale “D. Cotugno” & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Hermann Hesse Oberschule
• German Language School Goethe
• LPO Fernand Renaudeau