MYwords project was designed in a european context of progressive decline of school education of Italian and German. This behavior contrasts with the objectives that the European Union has set in terms of multilingualism: protect linguistic diversity and promote the academic achievement of European languages. Two needs emerge: increasing curricular choice of Italian and German in high school and improve language skills in order to facilitate access to new employment sectors in strong growth in Europe. These challenges need to be addressed at a transnational level, enhancing the intercultural relationships already in place and sharing strategies and best practices. To meet the requirements described, MYwords aims to achieve three objectives: 1. contribute to promoting the learning of Italian and German, with innovative approaches to the study; 2. favor the acquisition of pertinent transversal and specific language skills, applying integrated teaching methods; 3. Allow the acquisition of computer skills, applicable to the publishing sector. The targets identified are the students of the last two upper secondary classes, near the exit from schooling and near the vocational choice that will have to undertake. The innovative logic of the project "MYwords" is to offer to a transnational group of pupils a complete experience, in school-work, targeted to produce a bilingual anthology IT / DE, edit it and publish it online in various formats open access . The experience thus includes different types of learning: literary translation, different from the language translation, publishing techniques to build and compose text and digital publishing techniques, developing skills and competencies even valid for the construction of Web sites. Learning activities will take place in laboratory mode, in four intensive programs of transnational mobility Studio, alternating with virtual seminars for reinforcement of learning. The participants will work together in an interdisciplinary mode in literary translation workshops and digital publishing. The working groups will be mixed pupils / teachers and in many cases it will adopt the peer education. In relation to language learning with literary translation techniques and skills in the digital environment, the main result will be an eBook "Selections from the Hessian writers and Emilia Romagna", entirely built and translated by the participating students, with ISBN (International Standard Book Number code), developed for all types of computer support e-reader, computer, tablet, smartphone, in ePub format without DRM, open access. However, the project will bring other benefits: • the participating students will acquire new skills and abilities, useful to undertake linguistic professions and address the digital publishing industry; • the participating schools will have greater visibility and better reputation; they will develop new opportunities to exchange and professional comparison on the languages and digital technology sectors and new opportunities to develop permanent partnerships; • the European Schools will have access to the digital anthology, to materials and training modules produced by the project; they'll can replicate the integrated laboratories, extending them to other languages, to additional content and to other contexts; they will enter in MYwords School Network and will experiment to exchange new ideas for teaching of literature; They will know the experience of ComunEbook in partnership school/local-authority and have new opportunities for partnerships for future projects. MYwords help to achieve: • greater awareness of good practices by participating schools and their extension to other schools and other contexts; • broader knowledge on the part of the citizenships and schools, of Writing Residence Assia-Emilia-Romagna programme and writers; • the involvement of a large number of schools and groups interested in learning and replicating the experience; • more and better exchange of views and best practices with teachers and schools in Europe; • a better and more widespread inter-institutional co-operation between schools and local authorities; • the development of new European partnerships and new projects; • an advantage, as well as for the education sector, including the tourist-cultural sector at local, regional and international levels, by the purposes of experience combined school and work-promoted with the project.
MYwords has developed in an educational-institutional context in the ambit of the partnership between the regions Emilia-Romagna and Hesse. Through the application of new teaching methods, it aims to increase interest for German and Italian as foreign languages. The publication of the anthology My words with yours has indeed produced interest in a field of Italian-German bilingualism at local, national and international level by students, writers, translators, editors, school and university teachers; a group of students from the three institutions involved who did not study Italian / German as a foreign language, after the experience of the project, enrolled in Italian or German courses; the interest also grew among colleagues, after Professor Ickler held language courses for adults in Bensheim and Ferrara. The specific objectives of the project, described in the grids published on the site https://www.mywordswithyours.eu/index.php/it/mywords-school-network, are the following: - investigate translation as a process and as a product and identify the competences that derive from it: intra- and interlinguistic reformulation skills, ability to distinguish between the expressive and communicative component of the text. - organize workshops during which the participants discuss the search for meaning in order to have a correct understanding, learn the use of the tools for translation and the rendering of the expressive component of literary texts - create inclusion through "creative translation" laboratories. The experience, which began at first with German and Italian, extended to other languages, such as the Filipino and Moldavian. (video n. 5: https://www.mywordswithyours.eu/index.php/it/video) - create a bilingual anthology for the digital publishing house ComunEbook Ferrara with open source software, thus acquiring computer skills and understanding the production mechanisms in the publishing field. The anthology can be downloaded for free on e-readers, tablets, smartphones and computers. Most of the activities took place in peer-to-peer mode. Students from the last two high school classes took part in the project, around 100 in mobility, others in the activities carried out during the reception phase. The students were selected on the basis of the interest shown towards translation and writing, even if their performances were poor or just enough. The laboratory experiences developed in a school-work mode. The following aims have also been achieved: - meetings with writers (Decker, Boerdner, Foersch, Pavani, Bianchi) and translators (Galli, Mattazzi, Bernascone, Rossari); - the site and the project logo; - shared documents for the repeatability of the project; - the Mywords network. - Facebook and Instagram pages; - some meetings on European planning, dedicated to the CTQ, but also open to other school teachers. The project brought benefits: • to the students, who gave a positive opinion about the activities included in the project, as shown in the satisfaction questionnaires, stating that they had improved their skills; • to the participating schools, which have gained visibility by coming into contact with university institutions, experts and presenting the project at national and international events dedicated to publishing; meetings on European planning were organized for the CTQ members and for all the interested teachers; • to European schools and institutions, which have access to the digital anthology and can download materials; in this sense we know about the experience by professor Giulia Cartini (University of Amsterdam). The MYwords network was established on the e-twinning platform, in order to make possible an exchange of ideas on the relationship between translation and teaching and to make known the ComunEbook publishing model in a school / local authority partnership. Through participation in national and international events for the dissemination of the project (Turin Book Fair, Buchmesse Frankfurt, Internazionale Festival - Ferrara) and at territorial and interregional events (meeting with the Hessischer Jugendring and the press conference With the eyes of the Germans) the good practices experimented in MYwords have had wide visibility. Thanks to the collaboration with the Municipality of Ferrara and the Hessischer Literaturrat, MYwords contributed to the achievement of a more widespread knowledge of the Writing Residence Program; to a better collaboration between schools and local authorities; the tourist-cultural sector has also benefited: the collaboration with the Darmstadt Polytechnic and the stay in Ferrara of the architecture students, who through their drawings have spread the image of the city, was of great importance.