The main aim of this project is intercultural learning. Put simply, this means that our students encounter foreign people from a different culture and experience the difference of life and learning in the host country. The creation and promotion of the (linguistic) capacity to act in an international context is a focal point of the project. At the school-specific level, the project is necessary to provide learners and teachers with digital media as additional materials, which are characterised by their authenticity and topicality and thus represent a suitable complement to the work with textbooks. They can be integrated into the lessons to train listening comprehension and can be adapted by the teachers themselves as required to the respective language level of the learning groups in which they are to be used. The project will deal with the design of intercultural learning occasions in the school project work in the host country Spain, in extracurricular projects and excursions, as well as the establishment of virtual partnerships (getting to know each other and project tandems) in the phases before and between the mobilities. The project tandems are to continue the work on the audio and video files after the stay in the host country and create differentiated working materials for the use of digital media. During the mobility phase, the following project objectives will be pursued: - Creation of linguistic capacity for action through modern, communicative and media-supported foreign language teaching. - Dealing with uncertainty in a foreign cultural context and in a foreign language - Ability to deal with information from and about the foreign culture as well as the implementation of the ability to empathize in concrete encounter situations. - Mediation of regional and culture-specific orientation knowledge about the foreign country and its people, their history and everyday culture. - To get to know and linguistically develop the material and immaterial cultural heritage (cultural and social practices, techniques, knowledge) of the Murcia region in Spain. - Creation of digital media (podcasts, video clips) and teaching materials that can be integrated into the classroom to improve both receptive and productive language skills.
One of the project objectives was to promote the (linguistic) ability of the participating pupils to act in an international context. In the context of the activities carried out before, during and after the mobility, we can assume that this project objective has been achieved. For some pupils from both participating schools, the desired effect was achieved after an initial inhibition to express themselves in a foreign language (Spanish or English) had been removed at the beginning of their stay in the host country. The experience of living together in and with the host families was the decisive factor in this learning process. It has also made a significant contribution to reducing the uncertainty that sometimes exists in relation to the foreign cultural context of the mobility phases. Another project goal for the participants from Wiesloch was to get to know the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the region of Murcia in Spain and to develop it linguistically, and vice versa, to bring the region of Wiesloch / Heidelberg closer to the Spanish exchange partners. In the context of excursions to important cultural testimonies of the respective country’s history (museums, Heidelberg Castle, Wiesloch City History Tour, archaeological remains of former settlements, e. g. the Romans in Murcia, saltworks in San Pedro del Pinatar), opportunities have been created to gain orientation knowledge about the foreign country and its people, their history and to convey everyday culture. At the school-specific level, the project has led to the pupils producing texts in their mother tongue and / or foreign language in group work, with the aim of subsequently making them available as audio texts for use in foreign language teaching. Criteria for this were the connection to the living environment and the everyday culture of the target group, as well as the linguistic awareness of the pupils for the requirements of potential learners (speech proficiency, register, e. g. Expressions of youth language while maintaining authenticity. The work in the audio files has been received very positively and has led to digital media that can be used in the classroom and linguistically interesting. Initial experience at the Louise Otto Peters School has shown that the teaching materials can be used well, especially for training receptive skills.