The project "Listening to our heritage: The English way." aims to give answers to some of the most important challenges that we face as European citizens. We want to find common places of understanding and respect through the knowledge of our cultural, linguistic and even ethical realities. Our relationship is part of a common geographic and cultural connection. The European cultural itinerary of El Camino de Santiago. This relationship has already begun two years ago when we established contact thanks to the effort of the local administration that is making many efforts in the promotion of this itinerary. Thus, we exchange experiences and begin to link the school in Durham (England), considered the beginning of El Camino and the school in Sigüeiro (Spain) in the last stage before reaching Santiago de Compostela. The knowledge of the heritage and the improvement of the linguistic competence soon became common objectives to initiate professional collaborations between these schools. This relationship becomes real with the implementation of this project. With this project, therefore, we want to increase in our communities the recognition of our own cultural wealth and the social and human values of El Camino, which in a certain way, they are also from Europe. We will also improve the professional competence of teachers with the exchange of experiences and teamwork, which will revert to processes of innovation and modernization of schools. Above all, we intend to improve the linguistic competence in foreign languages of students through motivating and authentic activities and thanks to the experiences of linguistic immersion and mobility. Two schools with different characteristics participate in this project. The Spanish school is located in Galicia, specifically in the province of A Coruña. It includes students of primary and infant education, from 3 to 12 years old. There are 230 students in total and less than 20 teachers. This school has been open for three years and it already participates in the main projects of innovation of the Galician administration, but this is its first time collaborating in projects at European level. Participation in this program implies a commitment to modernization and work on heritage and languages. The english school has 208 pupils, 102 are boys and 106 are girls. Children are taught in discrete year groups with 1 class per year. The admission limit for each year group is 30 but we have one class that exceeds this (current Year 4 – 31 children. A minority of children do not access pre-school education The activities to be carried out will be focused on the creation of a radio station on the web, with contributions from the two schools. The radio programs will include information about the common cultural heritage, El Camino de Santiago. Obviously, the main part of the project will be the mobility that will allow us to discover the heritage and live the experience of cultural immersion. The project will be implemented by using the following tools: Ivoox, Skype, Twinspace, Google Drive, Facebook, Twitter and other more traditional ones like oral presentations, written, murals, etc. The use of ICTs does not infer an innovative methodology, it is the intentionality of the proposal that determines it. In this way, the writing, execution and editing of the podcasts are an opportunity for collaborative and motivating work. We need previous tasks in the search, analysis and transformation of information, which puts in play many more competences, but also communicative-linguistic. The sound products of our works are easily disseminated by the communities to which we belong. It is not the project of two groups of students with their corresponding teachers, it is the project of two schools, of two learning communities, with students, families, teachers and local authorities integrating them. The impact will be very important in the students for the experiences they will live, for their improvement in language skills in the foreign language, the use of new technologies, and knowledge of the cultural heritage. Also in the teaching staff, due to their increase in professional skills, innovation based on reflection, knowledge and the exchange of experiences. In organizations, because of their link to an idea of Europe and its values, for a vision of the school as something open and alive. In families and the local community, because they will learn from contact with other cultures and languages, because we will value our heritage and what it has in common with that of other places in Europe. In short, we will develop our collaboration between centers that geographically belong to the Camino de Santiago, and ethically and culturally, to the European project. In this way we will increase our ability to share ideas, practices and pedagogical methods. Above all, our students will increase their knowledge in foreign languages and in the common heritage.
The project "Listening to our heritage: The English way." aimed to give answers to some of the most important challenges that we face as European citizens. We wanted to find common places of understanding and respect through the knowledge of our cultural, linguistic and even ethical realities. Our relationship was part of a common geographic and cultural connection. The European cultural itinerary of El Camino de Santiago. This relationship began four years ago when we established contact thanks to the efforts of the local administration on the promotion of this itinerary. Thus, we exchanged experiences and began to link the school in Durham (England), considered the beginning of El Camino Inglés, and the school in Sigüeiro (Spain), the last stage before reaching Santiago de Compostela. With the project, therefore, we wanted to increase the recognition of our own cultural wealth and the social and human values of El Camino Inglés in our communities which, in a certain way, they are also from Europe. We would also improve the professional competence of teachers with the exchange of experiences and teamwork, which would revert to processes of innovation and modernization of schools. Above all, we intended to improve the linguistic competence in foreign languages of students through motivating and authentic activities and thanks to the experiences of linguistic immersion and mobility. Two schools with different characteristics participated in this project. The Spanish school is located in Galicia, specifically in the province of A Coruña. It includes students of Primary and Infant Education, from 3 to 12 years old. Nowadays, there are 222 students in total and 20 teachers. This school has been open for six years and it was already participating in the main projects of innovation of the Galician administration, but this is its first time collaborating in projects at European level. Participating in this programme implies a commitment to modernization and work on heritage and languages. The English school had 208 pupils. Children are taught in discrete year groups with 1 class per year. The admission limit for each year group is 30.A minority of children have not accessed pre-school education. The activities to be carried out were focused on the creation of a radio station on the web, with contributions from the two schools. The radio broadcasts included information about the common cultural heritage: El Camino Inglés. Obviously, the main part of the project was the mobility that allowed us to discover the heritage and lived the experience of cultural immersion. The project was implemented by using the following tools: Ivoox, Skype, Google Drive, Facebook, Twitter and other more traditional ones like oral presentations, written, murals, etc. The writing, execution and editing of the podcasts were an opportunity for collaborative and motivating work. We needed previous tasks in the search, analysis and transformation of information, which put in play many more competences, but also communicative-linguistic. The activities were intensively developed throughout the duration of the project, especially during the mobilities. Therefore, the podcasts are the product of a huge job, as can be seen on the website and in social media. The sound products of our works were easily disseminated by the communities to which we belong. In addition, the project had great recognition within the community with several appearances in various local media. The impact was very important for the students’ experiences of life, for their improvement in language skills in the foreign language, the use of new technologies, and knowledge of the cultural heritage. As for the teachers, they had the opportunity to increase their professional skills, innovation based on reflection, knowledge and the exchange of experiences. In organizations, because of their link to an idea of Europe and its values, for a vision of the school as something open and alive was fulfilled. In families and the local community, because they learnt from contact with other cultures and languages, because we value our heritage and what it has in common with that of other places in Europe. Unfortunately, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, we have not been able to finish the project as we would like it, leaving part of the proposed work incomplete. In short, we developed our collaboration between schools that geographically belong to El Camino de Santiago, and ethically and culturally, to the European project. In this way we increased our ability to share ideas, practices and pedagogical methods. Above all, our students increased their knowledge in foreign languages and in the common heritage. The objective of both schools is to continue working together on the knowledge of the European heritage and internationalization. Using El Camino de Santiago gives us a great opportunity to keep collaborating on future projects.