Project

Project Summary

According to the Eurobarometer, a large majority of respondents (88%) agree that Europe’s cultural heritage should be taught in schools, as it tells us about our history and culture. (Special Eurobarometer Report, Cultural Heritage, 2017). Adult education has a key role here. Adult and senior learners usually haven't receive successful European Heritage educations in their adolescence, which leads to euro-skepticism that has become visible and stable through public opinion in EU countries. For decades, the relation between cultural heritage and education was usually boring, passive visits to museums, restricted to observing historic monuments, focusing on the chronological history of events which lacked a connection with learners’ life experiences. Now, cultural heritage has a broader meaning. It shapes our everyday life, surrounds us in natural landscapes and archaeological sites. It is found in literature, art and objects, but also in the stories we tell children, the food and films we enjoy. Cultural heritage defines who we are and strengthens our sense of belonging to a common European family. Language school is a perfect place for culture education as students here are usually passionate about languages, ready to develop intercultural skills and their knowledge of other traditions, norms of behaviour and heritage. Partner organisations decided to respond to the need of modern teaching European Heritage to adult and senior learners. They will develop the idea of treating European heritage as a pedagogical and integration tool. It will be perceived as a carrier of important knowledge and common values. The project participants from partner organisations from Poland, UK, Italy and Spain will be adults or seniors - students and educators (both teaching and administrative staff responsible for educational offer). All of them will be invited to many local activities, some of them will also be selected to take part in the international training activities in partner countries. Participants will receive knowledge about this richness of Europe, as well as deepen the knowledge of their own culture. Educators participating in the project will develop their competences, exchange good practices, ideas and get necessary skills and inspiration to implement many creative lessons and activities, which will promote and support culture and European heritage. The aim of this project is to create opportunities for adults and seniors (both educators and students), to increase their educational opportunities and social activation, but also to develop their knowledge of European heritage and increase the sense of responsibility for shared cultural and environmental European values. This attitude will contribute to European integration as a social value and it will affect the cultural sensitivity of the European community. The strategic partnership will bring a wide knowledge about our common cultural heritage, encouraging everyone to learn about this European wealth. This knowledge will be promoted and disseminated widely. Descriptions of visited places, routes developed, prepared photos and videos will be presented on the project website which will be an information base on the cultural heritage of Europe. This site will be publicly available, participants will able to post their own impressions, descriptions, comments, photos and videos about places, customs, traditions they have experienced. In this way the main objective of the project will be achieved, which is to increase the opportunities to learn about the European heritage and to contribute to the integration and strengthening of the sense of pride and unity of the EU.At the same time, as participants will be adults and seniors, the project activities will promote Erasmus+ program among different generations with view to building and adding solidity to the European identity. This project should be carried out transnationally by the organisations from 4 culturally different regions of Europe, sharing similar goals but having different experience and Heritage. Thanks to this, the partnership created will provide great opportunities to strengthen partner organisations and enrich their educational activities. Developing strategic relationships between 4 institutions will allow them to face together the challenges of the adult education - constant need of developing staff's competencies and improving their educational offers to strengthen adult learners' motivation for lifelong learning as well as struggling with euro-skepticism. The exchange of experiences, good practices, ideas as well as working together on project implementation will help to improve their existing programs, activities. Obtained additional experience, new information resources, and educational materials for new programs will improve their quality of educational work. Partners assume lasting future collaborative relationships between organisations even outside the partnership for future actions.

The most important results expected during the project and on its completion are:

1)

New opportunities for adults and seniors, to increase their educational opportunities and social activation, but also to develop their knowledge of European heritage and increase the sense of responsibility for shared cultural and environmental European values. European heritage will be perceived as a carrier of important knowledge and common values. Project participants will take part in on-line, local and international activities (included in students' blended mobility) and receive knowledge about this specific richness of Europe. They will learn traditional folk songs and dances, get to know traditional celebrations, customs, beliefs, and improve the knowledge of the historical past of partner countries, their legends and traditional cuisine. They will be encouraged to find both differences and similarities. This attitude will contribute to European integration as a social value will affect the cultural sensitivity of the European community

2)

Improved competences of educators and other personnel who support adult learners in partner organisations: enhanced teaching and intercultural skills, wider knowledge of local and European heritage, new inspiration for culture lessons through learning mobilities, observing other teachers in action, exchanging best practices, experience and ideas. They will also receive many lesson scenarios with the use of digital heritage materials created during the project. Short learning mobilities of 3-4 staff members will enable many trainers to get new knowledge and competencies as the project assumes that teams going to different mobilities won't be the same. Participant coming back from the training will share their competences with the rest of the staff during local activities and publishing materials on the project website.

3)

Improving existing programs, introducing new educational activities to the offer of partner organisations. The idea of treating European cultural and natural heritage as a "pedagogical and integration tool" will be developed and many creative culture lesson plans will be prepared. European heritage will be perceived as a carrier of important knowledge and common values. Participants will create routes of heritage typical for their regions of Europe, present them to other partners during international meetings and publish digital version of these routes on the project website, along with lessons scenarios prepared upon the project. The event called "European Days" during the final meeting in Poland will put all the new knowledge and skills into action - trainers from partner schools will present their cultural workshops to Polish adult learners. Workshops will be evaluated and discussed together, materials improved in necessary. These projects results will respond to the need of constant improving educational offers to strengthen adult learners' motivation as well as struggling with euro-skepticism that has become visible and stable through public opinion in EU countries.

4)

Developing strategic relationships between 4 education institutions from different regions of Europe, dealing with language and culture trainings for adults and seniors, which will provide great opportunities to strengthen partner organisations, exchange experience, share ideas and work together on solutions to the challenges of life long learning. Long lasting collaborative relationships between organisations have been assumed even outside the partnership for future actions and project proposals.

5)

Promoting Erasmus+ program among different generations with view to building and adding solidity to the European identity as both adult and senior students will participate in many local, international and on-line project activities and benefit from adding solidity to their European identity.

6)

Promoting the concept of social and educational value of European culture heritage. The website of the project will be an information base on the cultural and natural heritage of partner countries. Descriptions of visited places, routes developed, information about all kinds of culture and nature, photos and videos will be presented there. This site will be publicly available, and those who enter this site will able to post their own impressions, descriptions, comments, photos and videos about places, objects or customs, traditions, and rites, which they have experienced. Partners will prepare and publish a digital guide for teachers on how to use materials about European heritage for their lessons with adult learners. The guide will include lessons scenarios and activity ideas prepared during the project. In this way it will contribute to increasing the opportunities to teach and learn about the cultural and natural heritage of countries and to contribute to the integration and strengthening of the sense of pride and unity of the EU.


In what way is the project innovative and/or complementary to other projects already carried out by the participating organisations?

European Culture has always been an interesting topic for partner institutions. Each of them have already worked with the topic of local and European heritage in the form of different activities, on a different scale. Their goals are the same - to create new educational opportunities for their students, to motivate for learning languages and to promote European culture, traditions and values. The Polish organisation realised the POWER KA1 project "Cultural diversity in adult education" in 2018-19, which was related to the methodology of teaching multicultural classes with students representing different cultural backgrounds. This project turned out very interesting for the school staff and resulted in hosting teaching interns from different parts of the world. The school have organised a diverse program of culture activities, workshops and meeting with foreign Erasmus+ inters sharing their culture and traditions with students. The school also organises twice a year one-week Festivals of Spanish Culture (QUE PASA?), and English Culture (WHATS UP?), where everybody can participate, not only school students. This extra culture program is free of charge and not obligatory for students and it is perceived as something complementing regular language classes. The goals and activities of the Spanish partner are similar. The school organises different cultural activities, excursions, conferences with international personalities addressed to students from different social-economic backgrounds who have no opportunity to travel and never left the region. These activities are also free and not obligatory for students and they aim to broaden students' mind and teach them about Europe. On the other hand, the school often promotes Galician's heritage among students attending courses of Spanish for foreigners. The Italian partner has the mission to bring Europe and internationalisation to the undeveloped Calabria region. It's European activities, workshops, lessons are more diverse and they are addressed to a the whole local society and authorities, not only to school students. It organises cultural excursions to old villages at risk of abandonment, and supports local citizens not to feel isolated fostering the international dialogue with those citizens in the North of Europe. In 2018 JUMP dedicated the Euro.Soul Festival to the European year of Cultural Heritage organising educational activities in high schools on local dialects and Italian. It invented a game called “I giochi di Etimo” based on researching and learning Etymology of actual words. The school also implemented in-formal teaching Italian through culture, traditions and cuisine. Partners from Poland, Spain and Italy have successfully promoted European values but only among those who are interested in the topic and ready to spend free time participating in extra activities organised by school. The project should help them to improve their educational offer by introducing the topic of heritage to the syllabus of all their courses in a very complex and professional way. In this way, project's topic, objectives and local and international activities will be complementary to the cultural programs run by organisations from Poland, Spain and Italy. With the project implementation the schools want to achieve an innovation in their educational offer -to continue exploring the topic of using culture as a pedagogical tool for education - to gain more experience and learn from other institutions. The aim is to improve the educational offer, implement culture heritage lessons to the syllabus of regular courses on a large scale. In this way, the European education will reach also students who have not been interested in the topic so far, sometimes eurosceptic (not only students passionate about European values who usually participate in activities at school). The situation of the British partner is a bit different. The school is teaching English to foreigners living in the UK and already has a vast experience in using British culture as an important part of teaching methodology. Teachers believe that without efficient intercultural knowledge and a local context, adult learners tend to feel embarrassed which can lead to problems in communicating. That is why British heritage elements have been included in the regular syllabus and all students have to learn it. Partners will have the chance to learn a lot from the British school in this field and will be able to take advantage of analysing its activities, syllabus of the courses and past experiences.On the other hand, regular culture education in the British school is somehow limited to the local heritage and does not include wide European education, which is extremely important in Brexit context. In this way, the project can bring innovation also to their educational offer as the staff will have the change to learn from partners how to promote Europe's and values, how to engage students in intercultural activities.

what will the partners bring to the project?

The applying school has never been involved in KA2 projects and based its choice on the results of risk analyses. It decided that this project should be carried out transnationally by the organisations from 4 culturally different regions of Europe, sharing similar goals and activities but having different experience and culture. Coordinators decided to focus on countries where languages taught at school are spoken as official languages. Cooperating with such countries, visiting them and learning about their culture would bring extra value both for school teachers and students of English, Spanish and Italian. Coordinators wanted to rise attractiveness of the project and to minimise the risk of not having enough candidates ready to participate. Another choice of criteria was partners location in the region famous for rich cultural heritage and its experience in promoting culture and local heritage among adult and senior learners. This would give the chance of having attractive educational activities and creating interesting materials that can be later used in the classes. Final important criteria of choice was reliability and international experience of partner organisations. That was to minimise the risks of problems with project implementation resulting from the lack of professionalism on the side of any partner.

1)

The Italian partner has already collaborated with the Polish coordinator. In 2019, Jump hosted a group of its language teachers and provided a tailor-made KA1 training on Stress management. During this mobility, teachers had the chance to experience Calabria. The first idea of the culture heritage KA2 project was born then.Jump is important for the project as it is experienced in bringing Europe into Calabria and in presenting its heritage to foreign guests. Their method "B.E.S.T.- Building Europe in a Small Town" aims to bring Europe to Calabria and internationalise local people. For language schools in the project, other Jump activities are also interesting. It uses culture as a pedagogical tool, also in non-formal language teaching. Courses of Italian combine language acquisition with experiencing Italian culture, theatre, music, cuisine. Other courses offer students the opportunity to explore the history of Italian theaters, extracts, biographies during developing communication in Italian.

2)

The Spanish partner has been known to the Polish coordinators despite the fact that they have never met before. It is due to this school's Erasmus+ coordinator, who was one of the best Spanish interns at the Polish school 6 year ago, just before she started working in Galicia. Since she finished her internship in Poland, she has been in touch with the school's staff, exchanging experience and new project ideas. Thanks to these contacts, Polish coordinators know the Spanish institution's activities very well. In this way, Erasmus+ internship from the past has led to present partnership of 2 adult education providers. This will be the first time ESID School of Languages will participate on an Erasmus + project without the Educative Centre to which it officially belongs to. Learning languages and culture is an important aspect of Liceo La Paz. As their students come from different backgrounds, many of them have no opportunity to travel and never left the region, the school organises different cultural activities, excursions, conferences with international personalities in order to broaden students' mind and teach them about Europe.On the other hand, the school offers courses of Spanish for foreigners, accompanied with the exploration of the Galician's heritage. Partners believe that this Celtic and Roman heritage of the Santiago de Compostello region would add extra potential to the project.

3)

Finally, the British organization was found on Epale platform, where it was looking for partners to its K2 project on teaching pronunciation. The Polish coordinator sent its application and PIF and after on-line meetings and discussing the collaboration, it was accepted as a partner for this pronunciation project which will be submitted to the British NA. The collaboration seemed very professional while years of experience in implementing various KA2 projects can turn out very useful. That's why, the Polish coordinator decided to invite the British school to the partnership on Culture Heritage. As an experienced school of English they can add new value to the projects realised by organisations where teaching English or training in English is one of the main activities. They believe that without efficient intercultural knowledge and a local context, adult learners tend to feel shy, embarrassed which can lead to problems in communicating. That's why they perceive British culture as an important part of teaching English (eg. they developed the method of teaching pronunciation with British songs which will be used in the project) and they have created lots of material and activities in this field.

How will the tasks and responsibilities be distributed among the partners?

Coordinators discussed active collaboration and participation of all partner organisations during all stages of the project. The main tasks and responsibilities will be divided, taking into account organisations potential and their staff experience.
Polish partner: coordinator, responsible for:
  • submitting the application, contacts with the National Agency
  • coordinating project activities and collaboration (supported by advice of all more experienced partners);
  • organising in Poznan the project transnational meeting of coordinators at the beginning of the project and later on
  • line project meetings on Zoom
  • management of the project budget and reporting to the National Agency
  • English-Polish translation of the website materials and document for local participants
  • British partner responsible for:
  • preparation of project agreements of different kind (between partners, between sending organisations and participants) as they have experience from previous KA2 projects and the best command of English
  • technically creating a project website and coordinating partners downloading materials on it during the project, as they have the technicians to do this to a high standard
  • writing guidelines to instruct teachers and trainers about how to use the published heritage materials in the classroom and publishing it on the project website
  • Spanish partner responsible for: quality management and evaluation of project activities
  • designing on-line surveys, questionnaire (eg by google forms) conducted by all partners to identify their needs, expectations, to better prepare and evaluate international events
  • analysing the results of questionnaires, preparing short reports on it with suggestions for potential improvements and presenting them during online project meetings of coordinators
  • displaying a visual presentation of the most important evaluation results in the form of a chart or graph published on the website
  • spread of simple evaluation google docs for teachers/students participating in local culture workshops/lessons
  • Spanish-Polish translation of the website materials and document for local participants
  • Italian partner:
  • coordination of blended student mobility in Soverato
  • digitally documenting all international mobilities, as in previous projects proved to be very skilled and successful in creating multimedia materials (films/photos/animations) They will also collect pictures from mobility participants and create innovative plurilingual videos
  • co-designing the project website to present the results of the 4 Routes in 4 countries as an online route which new users can follow, living the same experience like a virtual trip
  • English-Italian translation of the website materials and document for local participants
  • Additionally, each partner will be responsible for
  • creating Local Heritage Route and organising a short-term joint staff training event where this Route will be used as a pedagogical tool (Italian partner prepares the student mobility instead)
  • preparing digital materials for the project website related to the Local Heritage Route and about organised training event
  • promotion and dissemination of project results in the local, regional and national context, using digital tools, social media, direct relationships and organising local cultural events, workshops, presentations
  • Three topics that will be addressed by the project

    EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

    Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

    Teaching and learning of foreign languages