With this project we aimed to achieve the following objectives at various levels: - Students: More confident, critical and communicative students with a stronger awareness of their own identity. By direct interaction with international peers, they develop intercultural communicative skills, self-reliance and social resilience. They critically reflect on what they view as ‘normal’ and learn how to deal with diversity and inclusion within an international context. This also strengthens the social cohesion within their own class. - Host families: A higher awareness of their own family culture and a revaluation of their habits and environment. Through conversations with their guest(s), they learn about the habits of teenagers in a different country and are invited to think about cultural differences and similarities. - Teachers: A meaningful reflection on their own teaching and educational system and the added value of internationalisation. More attention for diversity and inclusion in everyday teaching. Strengthening of tutoring skills, collaboration within and outside of their section and an enrichment of their teaching with first-hand experiences with intercultural collaboration.
This project sprang from the need to better prepare students and teachers for their fruitful participation in a diverse and international society. Both partners experience that students are limited in their intercultural skill and that theoretical knowledge about diversity, inclusion and European collaboration is not sufficiently internalised without real-life experiences. In addition, we notice that teachers are looking for new ways to integrate these themes in their lessons in a sustainable way, and to strengthen social cohesion within the classroom. With this project, we aimed to provide our students with an opportunity to – safely and with guidance – learn outside of their comfort zone through direct interaction with international peers. By collaborating on a project, staying in a host family and experience cultural differences first-hand, the students developed crucial intercultural skills while gaining increasing awareness and understanding of their own identity. Through this collaboration, teachers gained the tools to integrate internationalisation and global citizenship into their curriculum in a valuable manner and to stimulate deeper connections within and between their classes.