The Sophie-Brahe-School (SBG) is a school from 1st-13th grade, located in Treptow-Köpenick, Berlin. The school is a colourful mix of 992 students from different cultural and social backgrounds, who are educated by a staff of 87 teachers, educators and social workers. Students start learning the first foreign language (English) in 3th grade and the second foreign language (French or Spanish, optional) in 7th grade. The school has not participated in any Erasmus+ projects yet. The San Francisco de Asís Colegio is a school teaching students from 1st-10th grade, located in an old convent from the 17th century in Lorca, Spain. The school was founded by a group of nuns in 1860. Since 1995, the school has been a teacher-run cooperative. Currently, it is a partially private and public primary and secondary school attended by 707 students with 49 teachers. The San Francisco de Asís Colegio clearly is focused on foreign language teaching. Starting in 1st grad students start learning the first foreign language English. The second foreign language (French or German) is optional from the fifth grade on. The school also offers bilingual learning (CLIL) in different subjects. Since 2018, the school has participated in two Erasmus+ projects with regard to CLIL (KA101 and KA229). Both schools believe that the development of European projects is a crucial step towards successful teaching and learning. They are also convinced of the need to promote European thinking and open-mindedness among the students. Since the beginning of 2017, two teachers have started developing a project concept. They teach German at the Spanish school and Spanish at the SBG respectively. Both of them have participated in an Erasmus programme as part of their studies and, thanks to the acquired skills, both of them are truly convinced that European exchanges are enriching experiences that encourage a lifelong learning. The project started with an exchange of different school tasks and first contacts among students. The project has been very well accepted at both schools that both partner schools are really interested in the further development of the project. In this sense, both sides realised that the financial resources for the further development of the project were missing, as an example, the financial support for short trips can be guaranteed only by a few parents. Therefore, the Erasmus+ funding should serve to further develop, establish and expand this project, which once started small and on a personal level. The schools' goals for this project are the following: 1) improving language teaching, 2) increasing student motivation to learn a foreign language and their enthusiasm for the foreign culture, 3) promoting the skills requested by the school system, and 4) internationalising both schools at a European level. The participants attend the middle school and are between 12 and 16 years old (for short trips a number of 12 students from Spain and 17 students from Berlin are taking part). Moreover, all students interested in this project and in out of school activities or hosting a foreign exchange students are mostly welcome to join this project. For this purpose, a German teacher from the Spanish school and two Spanish teachers from the SBG will participate in a mobility for further education. All Spanish students from the middle school have the chance to take part in the short-term exchanges who accompanied by two teachers. For that purpose, students will have to apply, since the vacancies are limited. The cooperation is based on an exchange of different school tasks in each grade. These tasks are integrated into the yearly teaching plans, whose content and competences are based on the respective school curricula. In addition, one teacher mobility and two student mobilities are planned per school year. The teacher mobility will focus on the acquisition of competences in project management and the use of eTwinning within the project. The project will be developed through regular communication between the participating teachers, the use of eTwinning, the preparation of materials and the use of new media. The expected results are the following: 1) the implementation of a good, open foreign language teaching in which new media are regularly used, 2) dedicated students who enjoy learning, 3) the improvement of the foreign language and its related competences (writing, speaking, text, media and intercultural skills) with a greater understanding of other cultures and European consciousness, and 4) a higher attractiveness of both schools and both foreign languages, German and Spanish. As far as long-term benefits of the project are concerned, we would like to: 1) build up further advanced language courses, 2) offer a broader range of topics, methods and projects in the classroom, and 3) establish further cooperations in other subjects.
The Sophie-Brahe-School (SBG) is a school from 1st-13th grade, located in Treptow-Köpenick, Berlin. The school is a colourful mix of 1.100 pupils from different cultural and social backgrounds, who are educated and taught by a staff of 104 teachers, educators and social workers. Pupils start learning the first foreign language (English) in 3th grade and the second foreign language (French or Spanish, optional) in 7th grade. The school has participated in some Erasmus+ projects since 2019 (KA101, KA201 and KA121). The Colegio San Francisco de Asís is a school for pupils from 1st-10th grade, located in an old convent from the 17th century in Lorca, Spain. The school was founded by a group of nuns in 1860. Since 1995, the school has been a teacher-run cooperative. Currently, it is a partially private and public primary and secondary school attended by 707 pupils with 49 teachers. The Colegio San Francisco de Asís is clearly focused on foreign language teaching. Pupils start learning the first foreign language English in the 1st grad. The second foreign language (French or German) is optional from the fifth grade on. The school also offers bilingual learning (CLIL) in different subjects. Since 2018, the school has participated in several Erasmus+ projects with regard to CLIL (KA101 and KA229). Both schools believe that the development of European projects is a crucial step towards successful teaching and learning. They are also convinced of the need to promote European thinking and open-mindedness among the pupils. At the beginning of 2017, two teachers started developing a project concept. They teach German at the Spanish school and Spanish at the SBG. This Erasmus+ KA229 project ran from September 2019 until August 2022. Thanks to the given grant, both schools were able to provide their lessons and their pupils with the necessary devices in order to work at a digital level during the lessons and also in the pandemic period of time. Furthermore, we could carry out two teacher-mobilities as well as two short-term pupil-mobilities. Thanks to the Erasmus+ grant, participants were able to take part in the project regardless of the financial situation of their families. The participants attended the middle school and were between 12 and 16 years old. They were attending the optional subject of German at the Colegio or Spanish at the SBG. With regard to the mobilities, the 12 Spanish pupils were from the 9th and 10th grade and the 20 Berliner-pupils were from the 7th, 8th and 10th grade. The cooperation was based on an exchange of different school tasks in each grade. These tasks were integrated into the yearly teaching plans as well as into the tradition and feast calendars of both countries, whose content and competences were based on the respective school curricula. In addition, two teacher mobilities and two pupil mobilities took place during the whole project period. The teacher mobilities focused on the acquisition of competences in project management, the use of eTwinning and Mobility Tool within the project. The expected results are the following: 1) the implementation of a high-quality and open foreign language teaching in which new media are regularly used, 2) dedicated pupils who enjoy learning, 3) the improvement of the foreign language and its related competences (writing, speaking, text, media and intercultural skills) with a greater understanding of other cultures and European consciousness, and 4) a higher attractiveness of both schools and both foreign languages, German and Spanish. All these expectations were mostly or completely achieved. First of all, we worked with mini-projects along the project, what enhanced authentic and more attractive lessons, so that our pupils were really motivated to learn the languages. Secondly, due to the continuous contact between the schools and the exchange of materials, our school got more international and both teachers and pupils could improve their language and intercultural skills. Thirdly, participants developed a certain European consciousness, they connected to each other, they saw themselves as peers and they were absolutely excited about the Erasmus+ experience. Last but not least, our lessons developed drastically in terms of digitalization thanks to the Erasmus+ grant. In this sense, the achieved results beat our initial expectations. As far as long-term benefits of the project are concerned, the school cooperation will not end with the end of this KA229 Erasmus+ project. Indeed, both schools applied for the accreditation and are already working together on the next project. This will be supported by a KA121grant and it will be carried out during the school year 2022/2023.