Our primary school and the English partner school already know each other from a previous European project. The native language of the partner school is being taught at both institutions. Both schools are pursuing similar educational and pedagogical goals. Interest groups of teachers of both schools have already been founded. After having had a lot of common experience we would like to apply for a bilateral project with this proposal for the first time. Our project goal is the improvement of the ability to read, the understanding of texts and the motivation to read. While trying to reach this goal we would like to get to know each other better and improve the understanding of country-specific similarities and differences at the same time. We would like to found a book club in which students of both schools aged 9 – 11 will read the same selected books in their native language. Furthermore, we will work on the same book projects for every book. During future student´s exchanges we want to present and discuss our results to each other. Teachers of both schools will choose the books together and develop projects for it. We are expecting the improvement of the reading ability and an increasing motivation of reading books from our projects. We also want the children to look into the contents of the books more intensively. At the same we would like the students to understand and accept the learning and living culture of the partner country and to embrace it for themselves. It is planned to intensify and to expand the existing relationship as well as using existing joint reading projects und reading competitions for future classes.
Our project was based on improving reading skills and understanding the meaning of read texts and whole writings as well as increasing motivation to read in the context of cultural similarities and differences typical of the country. We wanted to achieve this with a book club. In the preparatory meetings of each project year, we selected books and suitable projects for understanding meaning, which were read and worked on in both institutions by the respective graduating classes. Our goal was also to involve as many students and teachers as possible, as well as external staff, in the project. We also selected extracurricular learning locations such as libraries for carrying out the project. In the first year of the project we were able to fully implement our project planning. The student exchanges and the joint work on the books as well as the associated getting to know the respective national culture formed the highlight of the project work. In the second year of the project, unfortunately, only the kick-off meeting took place. The student exchanges could not be carried out due to the travel restrictions caused by the corona pandemic. Nevertheless, each institution worked intensively on the implementation of the project content and we kept each other up to date by e-mail and sent us the results. This enabled both schools to understand what the partner had contributed to the project. Unfortunately, the final meeting could not take place either. But we still want to stay in contact and maybe continue our longstanding partnership with new innovations.