This project is designed to explore and use the positive effects the digital world offers with regard to learning modern foreign languages, particularly as it has become obvious in recent years that French and German are losing ground in being foreign languages of choice for students in other countries. Hence, the Collège des Fontaines in Poix de Picardie (France) and the Liceul Teoretic ‘Johannes Honterus’ in Brasco (Romania) have joined the project coordinator, Gesamtschule Eifel (Germany), and embarked on a European simulation for pupils aged 12 to 16 years. The pupils use the eTwinning media platform Live, which provides a wide range of digital tools, to take on the roles of inhabitants of a virtual European shared house. The people ‘living’ in the house are representative of societal structures in Europe; hence, there are a housekeeper, a self-employed person, a young couple, two families with children, an elderly lady and many more people. These virtual characters meet, chat, fall in love, argue with each other and master challenges together. This experience provides the opportunity for the pupils to communicate ‘in real terms’ and to get to know not only the languages of their counterparts but also to gain invaluable insights into each other’s cultural backgrounds, including socio-cultural as well as economic characteristics of the respective home countries Romania, France and Germany. The simulation works is set up as a role play, a form of game that is particularly popular with young people. Every month, the inhabitants of the house have to solve tasks that range from them moving in and getting to know the character they portray to setting up house-rules to celebrating a street party to receiving a strange letter addressed to them. In order to master the challenges, the members of the house community have to show intercultural awareness and tactical prowess. Obviously, the cultural background as well as the diversity and similarities within European society are mirrored in the behaviour of the house community and sharpen the participants’ senses for the characteristics of a European identity and democratic structures. To complement their virtual roleplay with real-life experience, the pupils will visit the respective ‘other’ countries and can do their own ‘reality check’. The first project meeting in Blankenheim aims to set out the first scenes of the European house community. It is indispensable that the pupils as well as the teachers are involved in this process; luckily, the project coordinators have managed to acquire journalist and EU speaker Claudia Hoffmann from Brussels and illustrator Jan Hillen from Bedburg to turn the adventure into a novel. This process of adding new chapters to the ‘story’ will continue in further meetings in France and Romania. At the end of the two years assigned to this project, the ‘story’, or rather, novel of a virtual European house community will be complete. The entire experience will then be presented to the wider public not only in a 15-minute-long documentary devised and filmed by participating pupils but also by readings of excerpts of the novel at the LitEifel-festival in Nettersheim (Germany), in the German Centre of Culture Kronstadt in Brasov (Romania) and in the "Département d’Allemand" of the "Université de Picardie Jules Verne" in Amiens (France) .
This project is designed to explore and use the positive effects of learning modern foreign languages, particularly as it has become obvious in recent years that French and German are losing ground in being foreign languages of choice for students in other countries. Hence, the Collège des Fontaines in Poix de Picardie (France) and the Liceul Teoretic ‘Johannes Honterus’ in Brasco (Romania) have joined the project coordinator, Gesamtschule Eifel (Germany), and embarked on a European simulation for pupils aged 11 to 18 years. The pupils use the Teams media platform, which provides a wide range of digital tools, to take on the roles of inhabitants of a virtual European shared house. The people ‘living’ in the house are representative of societal structures in Europe; hence, there are families with children, an elderly lady and two eldery men, a teacher, and many more people. These virtual characters met each other in their roles, experienced differences and similarities in their respective cultures and tried out authentic communication with their European classmates in French and German. This experience provides the opportunity for the pupils to communicate ‘in real terms’ and to get to know not only the languages of their counterparts but also to gain invaluable insights into each other’s cultural backgrounds, including socio-cultural as well as economic characteristics of the respective home countries Romania, France and Germany. The simulation works is set up as a role play, a form of game that is particularly popular with young people. The inhabitants of the house have to solve tasks that range from them moving in and getting to know the character they portray to questions like" how do you celebrate christmas?". In order to master the challenges, the members of the house community have to show intercultural awareness and tactical prowess. Obviously, the cultural background as well as the diversity and similarities within European society are mirrored in the behaviour of the house community and sharpen the participants’ senses for the characteristics of a European identity and democratic structures. To complement their virtual roleplay with real-life experience, the pupils visited the respective ‘other’ countries and did their own ‘reality check’. The first project meeting in Blankenheim was to set out the first scenes of the European house community. During the originally planned mobilities in Blankenheim, Poix-de-Picardie and Brasov, the pupils should be given the opportunity to check their virtual impressions of the country themselves. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic situation, only two physical mobilities/writing workshops could be implemented. Excerpts of the book were presented to the general public in May 2022 in the multi-purpose room of the Eifel Comprehensive School.