The Erasmus+ School Project “Young Creative European Artists: Re-defining and shaping their own world exploring "Romeo and Juliet” (YEA!), for a widely heterogeneous group of students, aged 14 to16 years, including special needs' learners, from diverse social backgrounds, has the intention of developing and supporting students’ pragmatic communicative abilities in English and enabling active cooperation with international peers and empowering learners to participate in intercultural communicative relationships. As the project idea connects with vital aspects of students' learning horizons where they find themselves involved in complex everyday life situations, while encountering puberty and adolescence, a further goal is directed at achieving cultural awareness of and togetherness with foreign peers through a European partnership of three schools. Thus, the project aims to bring together young people with diverse social experiences and backgrounds to enable friendly encounters with peers in cooperation, communication and learning relationships, rejecting social segregation and separation. For the students, language learning processes will be organized at three differentiating levels, i.e. students with advanced skills matching CEFR-level B1, with basic skills reaching CEFR-level A2+ supported partly bi-lingually, and with learning impairments enabling basic competences at CEFR-level A1 provided for fully bi-lingually. In addition, the project is directed at the extension of students’ IT-skills by using digital media tools, such as e-mails, blogs, chats and audio- and video-transmitted exchanges. IT-resources will be used as a means of research for content- and language integrated (CLIL) tasks. To achieve the relevant learning goals for the heterogeneous cognitive levels of students, socially-oriented interaction models of learning will have priority, e.g. peer-assisted learning activities supported by prompting and scaffolding methods which enable the individual learner to concentrate on the processual involvement instead of individual difficulties in learning. For the purpose of creating cognitive curiosity and the building of reflexive knowledge as well as language competencies leading to communicative interaction, the literary reception of the drama "Romeo and Juliet" (R&J) in interdisciplinary language teaching is introduced. The drama R&J is to be modelled as the project's plot structure allowing students' to compare and contrast their individual everyday life experiences with the emotional situation of the characters in the play . Covering the two-year project period, seven curricular modules are formed. Module 1, “I and the Others” introduces the project programme to the students with the first steps into R&J, and encourages them to reflect on their own personal everyday experiences which might link up with the general plot of the drama. Module 2, “Friendship and Love”, deals with the meaning of these two basic emotions; students' biographical stories will be collected and compared with specific scenes in R&J. Module 3, “Displacement and Borders”, discusses the notions of strangeness and enmity, and the overcoming of borders, in both the contexts of the real world and R&J. Module 4 is a Workshop-based Phase in which the creative outcomes of the first project year are made by handicraft activities and theatrical performances. The second project year starts with Module 5, “I and We”, to re-connect students with their project, re-enable a thorough identificatory bonding and to discuss and analyze the significance of being socially encoded in the “We” ; materials are based on R&J; steps into musical elements are practiced and artistic products are made. Module 6, “War and Flight”, presents in addition to excerpts from the literary R&J source another modern text type, i.e. the Charta of Human and Children’s Rights, with the function of analyzing family patterns and children's rights historically. Module 7, the second Workshop-based Phase of the project, concludes the second year's programme. Scenes from R&J are staged, and, secondly, a joint project book, containing materials selected from all outcomes, is produced. The activities are supported by four LTTA Meetings where students actively interact with their peers, work together in mixed-groups, create texts and songs, perform and video scenes and produce a project book. The activities are regularly evaluated, documented on websites and materials are presented in public school rooms. The impact of the project on the participating students and their teachers, and the school as a whole, will be increased intercultural awareness and a movement against discrimination, racism and xenophobia. A long term benefit to students will lie in greatly increased competencies and skills from the use of English as the project language, including increased confidence in grammatical strength, and heightened fluency in written and spoken language.
The Erasmus+ School Project “Young Creative European Artists: Re-defining and shaping their own world exploring "Romeo and Juliet” (YEA!), for a widely heterogeneous group of students, aged 14 to16 years, including special needs' learners, from diverse social backgrounds, had the intention of developing and supporting students’ pragmatic communicative abilities in English and enabling active cooperation with international peers and empowering learners to participate in intercultural communicative relationships. As the project idea connected with vital aspects of students' learning horizons where they found themselves involved in complex everyday life situations, while encountering puberty and adolescence, a further goal was directed at achieving cultural awareness of and togetherness with foreign peers through a European partnership of three schools. Thus, the project aimed to bring together young people with diverse social experiences and backgrounds to enable friendly encounters with peers in cooperation, communication and learning relationships, rejecting social segregation and separation. For the students, language learning processes were organized at three differentiating levels, i.e. students with advanced skills matching CEFR-level B1, with basic skills reaching CEFR-level A2+ supported partly bi-lingually, and with learning impairments enabling basic competences at CEFR-level A1 provided for fully bi-lingually. In addition, the project was directed at the extension of students’ IT-skills by using digital media tools, such as e-mails, blogs, chats and video-transmitted exchanges. IT-resources were used as a means of research for content- and language integrated (CLIL) tasks. To achieve the relevant learning goals for the heterogeneous cognitive levels of students, socially-oriented interaction models of learning had priority, e.g. peer-assisted learning activities supported by prompting and scaffolding methods which enabled the individual learner to concentrate on the processual involvement instead of individual difficulties in learning. For the purpose of creating cognitive curiosity and the building of reflexive knowledge as well as language competencies leading to communicative interaction, the literary reception of the drama "Romeo and Juliet" (R&J) in interdisciplinary language teaching was introduced. The drama R&J was to be modelled as the project's plot structure allowing students' to compare and contrast their individual everyday life experiences with the emotional situation of the characters in the play. Covering the two-year project period, seven curricular modules were formed. Module 1, “I and Others” introduces the project programme to the students with the first steps into R&J, and encouraged them to reflect on their own personal everyday experiences which might link up with the general plot of the drama. Module 2, “Friendship and Love”, dealt with the meaning of these two basic emotions; students' biographical stories were collected and compared with specific scenes in R&J. Module 3, “Strangeness and Borders”, discussed the notions of strangeness and enmity, and the overcoming of borders, in both the contexts of the real world and R&J. Module 4 was a Workshop-based Phase in which the creative outcomes of the first project year were made by handicraft activities and theatrical performances. The second project year started with Module 5, “I and We”, to re-connect students with their project, re-enable a thorough identificatory bonding and to discuss and analyze the significance of being socially encoded in the “We” ; materials were based on R&J; steps into musical elements were practiced and artistic products were made. Module 6, “War and Flight”, presented in addition to excerpts from the literary R&J source another modern text type, i.e. the Charta of Human and Children’s Rights, with the function of analyzing family patterns and children's rights historically. Module 7, the second Workshop-based Phase of the project, concluded the second year's programme. Scenes from R&J were staged, and, secondly, a joint project book, containing materials selected from all outcomes, was produced. The activities were supported by four LTTA Meetings where students actively interacted with their peers, worked together in mixed-groups, created texts and songs, performed and videoed scenes and produced a project book. The activities were regularly evaluated, documented on websites and materials were presented in public school rooms. The impact of the project on the participating students and their teachers, and the school as a whole, was increased intercultural and European awareness and a movement against discrimination, racism and xenophobia. A long term benefit to students lay in greatly increased competencies and skills from the use of English as the project language, including increased confidence in grammatical strength, and heightened fluency in written and spoken language.