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As a European I´d Like to Teach the World |
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As a European I´d Like to Teach the World |
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EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF THE PROJECT “INNER” IMPACT Cooperation and Communication have been effective and fluent. A database has been made with the email addresses of the students participating in the project. They have exchanged emails either to get to know each other or to get information on a particular topic to do an activity. When student exchanges took place, the hosting school asked for students' personal profiles in order to find the best matches for them. We made
SPECIFIC IMPACT ON THE STUDENTS Many of the planned activities have implied communication by email (for the exchange of information or to get to know better), and by ordinary post (for essays, photographs, paintings, poems, greeting cards) Students got an increased knowledge, understanding and awareness of the European cultural diversity. Attitudes to language learning were improved as a result of meaningful context where students shared work and ideas. This motivation also made the learning process more attractive and led to the need to improve reading
and writing skills
for communication with other European schools. Having to use different sources to search for information on different common topics that they shared with European students made them more aware of their own learning process and helped them reflect on the importance of 'Learning to learn' and in their personal and professional future.
SPECIFIC IMPACT ON THE FAMILIES: The project also had an impact on the families. On the one hand, on those families that hosted foreign students; and on the other one, in those who sent their children abroad.
IMPACT ON THE TEACHERS: An increased communication between partner schools allowed improvements in all schools as the sharing of good practice impacted upon different ways to be more innovative and creative in our teaching practice. Through participating in project activities the professional development of teachers has been enhanced through language development, pedagogical approaches and an increased cultural awareness. It has also fostered crosscurricular links as all teachers had a common theme. It allowed teachers to contribute to the evaluation of outcomes and make decisions about future activities.
IMPACT ON INSTITUTIONS, LOCAL AND WIDER COMMUNITY All the partner schools benefited from the project. It also had impact on other local primary and secondary schools by disseminating it directly, through Teachers Training Centres and 'open doors days'. The aims of the project, connected with the knowledge of the own history, geography, culture, language, natural resources and values, were connected with the knowledge and understanding of the partners’ culture and traditions. All partner schools contributed to make a shared blog with common activities for the students, useful links, and interesting websites. We created a website where all the information about the project was uploaded regularly. We used our experience to share it with all the teachers in the region directly or through our Teachers Training Centre or through the meetings of the teachers in the Department of Qualification. After the meetings, we wrote articles about the country visited, the activities done and the personal experiences, to be published in the council of education website, the local press, the local televisions or on the project and school websites and blogs. We invited the education authorities to welcome our guests during the mobility activities, to see what we were doing in the project or to help us select students for the mobilities. We wrote in the schools magazines or in the cities newsletters about our project, visits, activities, teachers and students involved. Some of us also shared experience with our school-mates through short conferences at midday breaks. The parents’ associations were also interested in knowing about the experience of the students. This had an influence on our local and regional life as a whole, contributing to a higher recognition of the schools and school-systems as a whole. When our students took part in a project-meeting abroad, they were awarded the ‘Euro-pass mobility’, since it is an official document likely to help them in their future professional life. A place for project materials was selected at the schools where every parent and student could see them, even local people passing. At teacher-parent meetings we presented our pieces of work and shared experiences with parents.
It was very important the fact that we had to design the activities of the project work in advance, because this allowed us to integrate them into every teacher's yearly plan and in the plan of the institution.
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