The project “discover and share your identity mark“ will be a two-year long project. The schools which participate are I.E.S Elexalde school, a secondary school situated in Galdakao, the Basque Country and a junior high school situated in Katerini, Greece. English will be the language of communication.The project is aimed at students of 14 years old. The reason why we decided to submit the project is a result of the necessity to open our high school to new realities, different from our local contexts through internationalisation. It is designed to develop our student’s cognitive and non cognitive abilities as well as the competences required in our global world and above all, to disseminate the European culture and their intercultural awareness. The choice of the project responds to the fact that, as it is the European cultural Heritage Year and we are European citizens, we consider that our students’ learning of their own national identity, as well as that of another member' s of the European Community and their capacity of transmitting it, will be very enriching for them. The main objectives of the project will be to raise our students’ awareness of their heritage, discover a new one, reflect on both and share it with a tolerant and respectful mind. Besides, the collaboration in the project between the two schools, ours and the Greek one' s will bring us a good opportunity for both students and teachers to achieve high levels of interaction, communication and exchange of ideas, as well as an improvement of the English language. ICTs will be incorporated in the curriculum as a part of it.The teachers from different fields will also participate in it, so the project supposes a step forward on improving teachers’ coordination and communication.The contents of the project are cultural heritage, natural heritage, maritime heritage and historical, architectural heritage.The cultural heritage will be divided into mythology, language, musical instruments, dances, food and sports The kind of activities will be of different type, some will be students’ research using the ICTs, working with e-twinning space, others will be school educational trips related to the topic with production of different tasks. They will create a recipe book, design traditional Greek instruments and learn to play them in a concert. Basque students will also play Basque instruments for Greek students. Both schools will learn traditional Greek/Basque dances and enjoy dancing .They will be able to communicate in very simple conversations in Basque and Greek.They will also discover The Mt Olympus Greek gods and Basque mythological creatures through sketches and tales. The maritime heritage will be worked through the virtual visit of BIlbao Maritime museum prepared by Basque students and the origin of the salt marshes by Greek. All their historical and architectural heritage of both countries will enhance our students’ cultural knowledge. Two exchange trips will be organised in which the material prepared through the two long years will be worked in situ. The methodology used in the project is a flipped classroom .That is, students will follow in-classes and at the same time, they will share e-learning activities between schools. We, teachers, will guide them in all the activities. Students will propose ideas and research the information needed, acquiring responsibility in working in teams. It is a collaborative project, in which students are encouraged to develop their communicative skills while working together as a group, step by step in a framework, in which creativity and critical skills will be developed. Due to this project, they will gain autonomy, responsibility, awareness of group work, creative thinking, artistic and social abilities as they are in charge of planning, researching, organising ,editing, ,presenting and elaborating their final product. Students’ spirit of solidarity will be also improved as well as the possibility of facing problem-based projects. The results will be forums, blogs, presentations, movie makers, leaflets, diaries, logo of the project, multilingual dictionary, research of the topics, interviews, the creation of twinning space, analysis of the educational systems of both countries, Schools webs with links to follow the project. We cannot forget that students will improve their competence in English, motivation, their knowledge of each one culture, cultural diversity, personal initiative and entrepreneurship spirit.Teachers will improve their professional competences and the relationships with families . We aim at giving dissemination of the project with workshops, open days. The longer term benefits of the project willl be a starting point for introducing a multilingualism in our schools. A way to continue developing attitudes and procedures related to the respect and tolerance in another culture and the capacity of transmitting their own one in multilingual contexts.
The project “Discover and Share your Identity Mark“ was a two-year long project although due to the coronavirus, it was extended for another nine months. The schools involved in the project are I.E.S Elexalde School, a secondary school in Galdakao, the Basque Country and a junior high school in Katerini, Greece. English was the language of communication. It was addressed at students of 14 years old. The project was submitted in response to a need to open our schools through internationalisation to new realities different from the local contexts. Our students' cognitive and non cognitive abilities as well as all the competences required in our global world were developed in the project . At the same time, we also disseminated European culture and students' intercultural awareness. The choice of it was based on the fact that, as 2018 was the European Year of Cultural Heritage and we are European citizens, we believed that our students' learning from their own national identity, as well as from that of other members of the European Union Community and their ability to transmit it could enrich them. The project's main objective was to raise consciousness on their own heritage, discover a new one and share it with a tolerant and respectful mind. Besides, the collaboration of the two schools in the project opened us a unique window of opportunities to achieve high levels of interaction, communication and exchange of ideas, as well as improvement of the English language. All this combined with the incorporation of ICTs in the curriculum as part of it. The teachers of other subjects were also active participants, so the project was a step forward to improving teachers' coordination and communication. As for the contents of the project, cultural, natural, maritime and historical-architectural heritage are the ones worked. The activities carried out in the project were diverse from those that entailed students’ research using ICTs and working with e-twinning space to those which were in relation to school educational trips about the topics worked with the production of different tasks. Students cooked and edited videos of traditional recipes, learnt about their traditional instruments and sang the song of the project.They enjoyed dancing traditional dances.They were able to use a few words in Basque- Greek to break the ice . They volunteered and designed murals and posters to disseminate the project at school. They were proud ambassadors of it as well as guides of their heritage during it and through the mobilities. They did school trips to perform the activities successfully. All their historical and architectural heritage knowledge acquired enhanced our students’ identity consciousness. We had one students' mobility in person and another virtual one. They meant unforgetful bonding and personal experience for both of them, because what they learnt through the project was practiced in situ. They also strengthened life and social skills as well as reinforced their self - awareness as European citizens. Moreover, there were another two teachers' mobilities to follow a training in eTwinning, flipped classroom, disssemination and assessment. The methodology used in the project was flipped classroom.That is, students were introduced to contents at home and practised working. Students developed their communicative skills while working together as a group, step by step in a framework, in which creativity and critical skills were developed. Due to this project, they gained autonomy, responsibility, awareness of group work, creative thinking, artistic and social abilities as they were in charge of planning, researching, organising, editing, presenting and elaborating their final product. The results were: the web of the project, forums, Paddlets, PowerPoints and Thinglinks of presentations, videos, leaflets, diaries, the logo of the project, a multilingual dictionary, interviews, digital stories, recipes, the creation of twinning space, newsletters of the project, digital magazines, posters, murals, graffiti and kahoots as assessment. We cannot forget that students improved their competence in English, motivation, cultural diversity, personal initiative and entrepreneurship spirit. Thanks to the project, the teachers improved their professional competences and set the keystone for collaborative work. What's more, the project promoted good inter-relationships with the families. It was disseminated in all the educational community and it appeared in the press, on the radio and television. The longer term benefits of the project are a starting point to continue with its sustainability through collaborative projects related to it with the Greek school, as well as the incorporation of it in the English subject curricula. A way to continue developing attitudes and procedures related to respect and tolerance with another culture and the capacity of transmitting their own one in multilingual contexts.