Alexander-von-Humboldt school in Asslar has been successfully conducting school exchanges in order to improve their foreign language teachers' communicative and intercultural skill sets. Reliable partners sharing the same goals could be found at IES Santa Maía del Àguila and Collège La Garriguette Vergèze. With the help of a long-term project on >water connects<, students should be enabled to evaluate their own behaviour as well as getting to know the distinctive features of their home country. While Germany represents Central Europe, Spain and France represent Southern Europe. It would be possible to allow more students to take part in these exchanges if there was a funding, so that personal financial backgrounds do not keep young people from taking part in this educational opportunity. The participants are students aged between 13 and 16 who are interested in taking part in this project and who study either German, French or Spanish. The project is carried out by their foreign language teachers, who can rely on their school administrations and colleagues for support. The chosen topic is water, so there is going to be a close teamwork with teachers of Biology, History and Geography. We expect students to broaden their knowledge about their personal usage of the resource, the historical dimension regarding its transportation as well as the attraction it creates for tourists. The language aspects on the topic are supervised by the foreign language teachers and will be a constant part of the lessons. In order to make the created results available to a larger crowd, we have chosen charts and freeze frames which are independent on one of the languages. Furthermore, promotion videos will be part of the presentation because they are appealing to students of their age. It also enhances students' potential in creating and analysing media. To achieve this goal, the eTwinning platform will be used right from the start. Students have to keep track of their own water usage - drinking and tap water - and compare their scores with the other students. The easy access to water in our countries is a good transition to the historical achievement of water transportation due to the influence of Romans - in France - and Arabs - in Spain. The realisation of this cultural heritage and the visit of certain historical sites will strengthen a shared European identity. A cultural dimension is the bathing culture - present and past - as well as geological features of the respective area, i.e. the Mediterranean Sea or River Lahn. The attraction of water to tourists in these regions will also be analyzed in this stage of the project. During these school exchanges, the linguistic dimension will focus on sayings in the particular languages which have to do with the word 'water'. Moreover, current media dealing with the topic in these countries will be part of the foreign language lessons for the purpose of analysing and presenting cultural peculiarities. The communication in the foreign language and a prereading plan in the mother tongue complete the linguistic dimension. All results will be uploaded onto Twinspace. School amdinistrations and the local media will be informed regularly via a showcase. By the end of the project, we hope students have increased their communicative, intercultural and media skills which a European citizen aware of a careful usage of the resource and the cultural heritage needs. The regular reports about the project in the media and the showcase at school can also make people who are not actually participating in the project aware of this important topic. Because many aspects of the project can not be evaluated in standardized tests, self evaluation sheets will be used for evaluating the long-term achievements students should make during the different stages.
Alexander-von-Humboldt school in Asslar has been successfully conducting school exchanges in order to improve their foreign language teachers' communicative and intercultural skill sets. Reliable partners sharing the same goals could be found at IES Santa Maía del Àguila and Collège La Garriguette Vergèze. With the help of a long-term project on >water connects<, students should be enabled to evaluate their own behaviour as well as getting to know the distinctive features of their home country. While Germany represented Central Europe, Spain and France represented Southern Europe. It was possible to allow more students to take part in these exchanges if there was a funding, so that personal financial backgrounds do not keep young people from taking part in this educational opportunity. The participants were students aged between 13 and 16 who were interested in taking part in this project and who studied either German, French or Spanish. The project was carried out by their foreign language teachers, who relied on their school administrations and colleagues for support. The chosen topic is water, so there has been a close teamwork with teachers of Arts, Politics and History. Our students broadened their knowledge about their personal usage of the resource, the historical dimension regarding its transportation as well as the attraction it creates for tourists. The language aspects on the topic were supervised by the foreign language teachers and had been a constant part of the lessons. At this point, the mother tongue often had to be used in order to grasp the complexity of the topic. In order to make the created results available to a larger crowd, we have chosen charts and freeze frames which are independent on one of the languages. Furthermore, promotion videos were part of the presentation because they are appealing to students of their age. It also enhanced students' potential in creating and analysing media as they used new applications and devices. To achieve this goal, the eTwinning platform had been used right from the start and especially during the pandemic. At the beginning students had to keep track of their own water usage - drinking and tap water - and compared their scores with the other students. The easy access to water in our countries had been a good transition to the historical achievement of water transportation due to the influence of Romans - in France - and Arabs - in Spain. The realisation of this cultural heritage and the visit of certain historical sites strengthened a shared European identity even though differences were shown. A cultural dimension was the bathing culture - present and past - as well as visiting geological features of the respective area, i.e. the Mediterranean Sea or River Rhine, cold-water geyser, saltworks and regional water sites. The attraction of water to tourists in these regions had been analyzed in this stage of the project. During these school exchanges, the linguistic dimension focused on sayings in the particular languages which have to do with the word 'water' at the beginning. The communication in the foreign language and a prereading plan in the mother tongue complete the linguistic dimension. All results had been uploaded onto Twinspace. School amdinistrations and the local media were informed regularly via reports and showcases at school. By the end of the project, students have increased their communicative, intercultural and media skills which a European citizen aware of a careful usage of the resource and the cultural heritage needs (evaluated and shown by self evaluations sheets). The regular reports about the project in the media and the showcase at school also made people who were not actually participating in the project aware of this important topic and increased the interest in participating in Erasmus+.