Teachers from Verket Skole in Norway had a wish and interest to learn more about how foreign language is taught around Europe. How do the different schools approach the teaching of the first and the second foreign language? What skills are mentioned in the different national curricula? Can we find signs of which model works best? One part of learning a new language is also to learn about culture. Therefore we wanted to study culture and among the teachers we hope to have an exchange of good practise. This we hope will increase the Language teachers' teaching skills. It will also encourage language teachers to reflect upon their own practise. There are 5 Schools participating, and they are from Denmark, Croatia, Spain, Cyprus and Norway. Each school brings 6 students and 3 teachers in addition to the main coordinator to the hosting countries. The students will participate in language classes in the hosting school and reflect upon what is taught and which methods are used and then give their teacher a written report. In addition they will with their teachers participate in cultural activities during their stay (details given in Learning, Teaching, Training). When returning to the home school, the students will give a presentation to their fellow students about their trip, comparing the culture to the hosting country and their native country. The same process is done for each trip with new students. We hope this will give an increase in motivation among students, which is a very important and interesting part of our project. Between visits, teachers will share teaching plans on different topics within foreign language teaching on E-twinning. We believe that when teachers and students work together in the project like this for two years, a quality contact will be established and there will be a foundation for further smaller E-twinning projects among foreign language classes between these countries. By letting the students live in families in host countries, the students will learn about the culture and achieve increased interulutral competence. The teachers will cooperate with the teachers in meetings in classrooms and on the internet between visits. This will also increase intercultural competence which will make teachers better at teaching intercultural competence. During the project the teachers will reflect and report on their own practise compared to the practises they have observed. In the end, the teachers also have to hand in a report where they conclude what they have learnt during the project in addition to how it has influenced their teaching. The project will last for two years, but the intention is to create a long lasting impact for the teachers that take part. Observing good practice and adjusting your own practice accordingly will take more than two years, and thus the project results will last longer than the project itself. For the students, we are confident that taking part in this project will open their eyes to the world around in a much more powerful way than they usually experience. They will have firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to stay in homes in the countries they visit. They will get an impression of how it is to be young in this country, how the host students relate to school, and how the teaching is, compared to what they are used to from home. This will have an impact on them that we know will stay with them into their adulthood.
The above written tett is in English.