Erasmus+ Project: Foreign languages, multilingualism and culture This exchange programme will allow the students to appreciate new lifestyles and cultures. They will overcome cultural bias and reduce prejudices. The “Arge Aop” association between Vorarlberg and Trentin created this exchange initiative in 2010. In 2020 the exchange initiative with Portugal and Cyprus was started. The students of the HLW Rankweil, the Liceo Artistico Vittoria grammar (Italy) and the Agrupamento de Escolas Camilo Castelo Branco in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal will have the opportunity to spend one or two weaks with Italian, Portuguese, Cypriot or Austrian families, respectively. In this period, they will attend school with their Austrian, Italian, Portuguese or Cypriot classmates. It is worth mentioning that all schools have different educational focuses. The 16 to 18-year-old participants have an A1 to A2 language level of Italian and Spanish. and a B1 of French and B1/ B2 of English. The Italian school is an art school, the Portuguese school is a public secondary scholl, the Cypriot Paralimni Lyceum is a general school whereas the Austrian school is a vocational school which provides comprehensive education alongside economics and service training. All schools encourage and expect creativity from their students. Above all, the students will learn about new subjects. The Austrian students will be able to take advantage of the convenient location of the partner school and get to know the nearby cultural sites. The Italian, Portuguese and Cypriot students will become familiar with the Vorarlberg region. In the context of various excursions they will get to know typical areas of Vorarlberg (a tour around the country – “Ländlerundfart”), the area around the Lake of Constance (Lindau and Friedrichshafen – two German towns), Switzerland (St. Gallen) and Liechtenstein (Vaduz). Moreover, they will take part in a workshop “Austrian Cuisine” at the HLW Rankweil. The aim of this workshop is to encourage the creativity of the Austrian, Italian, Portuguese and Cypriot students. The young people will be able to gather experiences through two different valuable avenues: For one, they will get a taste of Italian, Portuguese, Cypriot or Austrian family life, and additionally they will have the opportunity to experience a different school environment. By studying abroad, the students will be exposed to new ideas and will have to practice tolerance. They will realize that learning a foreign language will serve as a springboard for their professional and personal future. Teaching will not be restricted to the classroom. The “learning en passant method” will be employed, so that the excursions, their free time, the time with their guest families and in the new environment will become an opportunity to passively learn about the other cultures and improve their language skills. During the exchange programme, the students will have to write regular diary entries. The diaries will be collected and incorporated into the evaluation of the project. After the programme, the students will be encouraged to incorporate their new knowledge into their daily routine with the hope of improving the quality of their continuing education. The project partners will use the eTwinning platform, the-Email or Facebook for the preparation and evaluation of the Erasmus exchange project. They are responsible for finding suitable accommodation with host families. The supervising teachers will ensure that the prescribed learning goals are achieved. In the future, we plan to develop a network of partner schools across Europe for which this project is the seed.
Erasmus+ Project „HLW Rankweil lives Europe” Because of Corona the exchange between Vorarlberg (Austria) and Trentino (Italy) could not take place. Luckily, our Portuguese parter school, the Agrupamento de Escolas de Castelo Branco, and our Cypriot partner school, the Parlimni Gymnasium, were still available, which meant that we could successfully turn two exchange programs (each mobility lasting a week) in the year 2022 into reality. During the visits the students visited the school abroad and attended some lessons. Therefore, they could experience the everyday life of their Austrian/Portuguese/Cypriote peers. Thanks to the various educational focuses of the exchange schools (HLW Rankweil: vocational college, focus on economy, gastronomy and foreign languages. Agrupamento: focus on arts and range of school types. Paralimni: general education) the school types could be perfectly compared to each other, new subjects could be discovered and a new school system could be experienced. One similarity of all schools was the focus on foreign languages and for this reason, one of our main aims was to increase the foreign language competence of every participant. Thanks to everyday interaction everyone could improve their English skills and increased their self-confidence in speaking. Also, words and phrases in German, Spanish, Greek and Portuguese were quickly learned and applied. Another goal we set ourselves was that the participants should be matched together with peers of their age. A similar age helps students to find similarities and connecting points. We definitely reached this goal and already through this prerequisite the teenagers quickly connected with each other and found friends which turned into cross-national friendships. Additionally, we had the objective to let our students get to know a foreign culture include its traditions. Thanks to a varied program developed by the participating countries every student received authentic insights into a new culture. The Portuguese and Cypriot students got to know typical regions of Vorarlberg, they appreciated the nature and the border triangle through excursions, they cooked and enjoyed self-made traditional dishes at the HLW Rankweil such as “Kässpätzle”, “Schnitzel”, “Buchteln”, and “Sachertorte”. In our partner countries our students also experienced the variety of the foreign culture in attending an art workshop, surfing in the sea, getting to know the ghost village in Cyprus, enjoying the foreign cuisine, dancing sirtaki, singing songs in every possible language together and in enjoying themselves by having fun. Also the experience of living in a host family for those who had the chance to (because of Covid the exchange with Cyprus had to be organized in hotels) enriched the students since they experienced the family life and new (eathing)habits authentically. The development of the program, the getting-to-know each other of every involved person and the organization of the journey could be processed thanks to e-mail, Microsoft Teams and Skype. The use of these modern media also enhanced the media skills of every participant. Without such communication, the collaboration would not have been worked as smoothly as it was. The responsible teachers were responsible for controlling whether our goals were reached. They were also available for possible local problems and could always act solution based. To evaluate whether the goals were met, the students wrote diaries throughout the exchange, also to record their impressions. These diaries were taken as a source for evaluation. Further measures of evaluation were feedback rounds with the participants (class-intern) and publishing articles on various channels. Reports were published in our annual school report and on the school homepage, on the Erasmus day students reported about their positive experiences, our social media presence which included the students’ Erasmus+ experiences allowed us to reach even more audience and through conferences of the staff the success of the project was made available. Having reached the end of this project, we can wholeheartedly claim that our school exchange was a complete success. Every teenager appreciated the exchange, they could hone new contacts, turned more open/curious for new things, improved their foreign language skills and appreciated the importance of the English language, got to know the variety of Europe and brought new knowledge and stimuli into the school society. Thanks to such projects we can constantly improve the quality of our education and continue learning from each other, also in the future, because we want to continue working together with schools of Europe and increasing our network with European schools. We will also continue collaborating with these two partnerships to plan more such lucrative projects.