Collaborators | proyectopie

Portugal Agrup. Vertical de Escolas de Cristelo	Spain Colegio Aurelio Gómez Escolar, (Burgos)	France Collège du Plantaurel, Cazères (Fr)
Italy Istituto Immacolata, Novara (Italy)

The “Erasmus plus” project.The “Collège du Plantaurel” is a countryside middle school located more than thirty miles from Toulouse, also known as “la ville rose”. Therefore, most of the 700 pupils who study there don’t have – if not never, rarely – the chance to make the most of Toulouse and its culture-packed places.Our pupils are from a socially and culturally deprived background. Through the ‘Erasmus plus’ project, we would like to favour an open-mindedness process towards Europe. We also aim at helping them to understand what. As citizens, being part of the European community means.Beyond the cultural dimension we are eager to promote, we are willing to add a professional scope to this experience, making this a twofold project.Indeed, we are planning to start a fictitious business so as to enable school and the professional world to match. Thus, studying will be endowed with a deeper and always increasing meaning. Moreover, we do think this combined-subject and intercultural project is of an overarching importance to bring the schools from different countries closer together. We do hope this will lead each and everyone of us to a better mutual understanding.

Sandra Lecina.

Agrupamento Vertical de Escolas de Cristelo is a grouping of schools divided into early years (ages 3–5), primary education (ages 6–11) and secondary education (ages 12– 15/18). In total we have 1341 students, 688 of which are now attending at Escola E B, 2,3 de Cristelo (secondary education level).

We are in the countryside despite being nearby the second most important Portuguese city- Oporto. We belong to Paredes municipality, a region famous for designing and manufacturing furniture. Paredes has been recently announced as the winner of RegioStars 2014 Awards in the category 1: Smart Growth- with the project “Art on Chairs”.

Despite this fact, a large number of our students are from a depressed area with a low family income, where poverty and illiteracy coexist. This context has led our school and the Education Ministry to create a special project and programme. We then agreed an educational contract that has made it possible to achieve the school’s aims and objectives in order to improve students’ results.

What do we want to achieve?

We want to give our students the chance to experience a different school: more appealing and that is able to make them feel they are really part of the European community. A great number of our students have great difficulty in learning the English language. So we would like to give them different contexts where they could learn and use this language. One of our main aims is to make our students aware that using and knowing different languages will help them throughout their lives. Even though they don’t intend to get a degree, students should realise the importance of the English language in real life situations. This way a different attitude towards learning languages is required, since our local industries (wine and furniture) are getting known all over Europe and their business amount with other countries will probably increase and the English language will be an essential work tool.

So we are eager to give them meaningful experiences by becoming familiar with the world of work. We also desire to promote our students’ entrepreneurship through direct exposure with our local wine business companies, since we are in the so called Demarcated Region of Vinhos Verdes (http://rota.vinhoverde.pt/rota.php?lingua=1) and most of our students aren’t aware of this.

This will be for sure the opportunity to bind these schools from different countries (Spain, France, Italy and Portugal) together through new technologies and languague(s).

Helena Carriço, Sandra Pinto, Natalia Nogueira y Manuel Ribeiro.

The Immacolata Institute is located in the centre of Novara, a small town near Milan, in the north-west of Italy. For almost one hundred years it has offered an educational service providing a primary school, a lower secondary school and a vocational school.

It is a Salesian Catholic school inspired by Don Bosco and Mother Maria Mazzarello whose anthem has always been “Good Christians and Honest Citizens”.

The school operates on the territory through a constant collaboration with the Regional School District and other local businesses. It shares Salesian missions and projects worldwide. It welcomes young people without any racial, religious and cultural distinction. Most of the students comes from the town itself and villages in the province of Novara; they belong to different social classes, but with an eye on the most indigent ones.

Our lower secondary school offers two different courses: three traditional classes in which students enhance their musical and scientific potentialities, and six international classes where the study of foreign languages and cultures is the main aim. The English hours are six per week and the second language hours are three per week. Students are asked to choose among French, German or Spanish as the foreign second language. This innovative teaching in town is aware of the changes we are experiencing in the modern globalised society and supports multiculturalism. All subjects are learnt in Italian, English and in the second language, using the CLIL approach. One-week stays abroad are thought to improve their communicative skills during the school year.

We think that Erasmus Project can allow our students to understand better the importance of what they are studying: English is not just a language but a way of thinking and behaving, opening their minds to a new intercultural sensibility. The project could make the students more conscious of their town, their territory, their future work experiences. Being involved in introducing their lives to European peers, visiting local places and being in contact with institutions (newspapers and businesses) is a further step for a school thought for the new era. Starting from who they are and where they live, they will be able to embrace their new European schoolmates since “English makes the people come together”.

Comparisons will be undoubtedly positive, Skype contacts will be highly recommended along with any other digital form of sharing experiences and European exchanges will have the students more and more involved as active participants of their work in progress.

Stefania Mastrantonio