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AN IDEAL EUROPEAN SCHOOL
On Saturday 11 March, two students and one teacher from each partner school arrived in Köping to be accommodated before the actual start of the project week. This means a total of eight students from England, Finland and Germany were met at the train station by Swedish host families (although these too had various national backgrounds) and brought to their Swedish homes for the following seven days. The next day the teachers and students made a trip by coach to Västerås to engage in physically and intellectually challenging activities in ”Prison Island”, located in the city centre, and to visit an interesting historical site called Anundshög. In between these two activities we had a lunch break at a fast food restaurant where a separate room of perfect size for our group had been reserved. The students had thus many opportunities to talk and to cooperate, which lay a good foundation for their joint project work starting Monday 13 March. Monday morning, the visiting teachers presented themselves to the staff of Scheeleskolan before the start of lessons at 8:10 am. Shortly thereafter, the assistant headteacher gave the visiting students a quick tour of the school. They were then invited to take part in so called ice-breaking activities, lead by the PE teacher who had been to Finland for another Teaching/Training/Learning activitiy in September last year. At about 10 am, students and teachers from all partner schools gathered in a conference room where the visiting students showed PowerPoints of their respective schools to peers and instructors. The presentations were really impressive and gave good insight into many aspects of the schools. For example, the two students from Germany showed excellent speaking skills in English on the one hand and creativity in making a slideshow plus a film about a day in their school on the other hand. There was a lunch break and then the presentations went on for an hour or so. After that, the visiting students prepared interview questions for the Swedish headteacher and Swedish students regarding Scheeleskolan. The English teacher leading the workshop activities concluded the day in school with some reminders for the students. In the late afternoon, the visiting students and their hosts spent time together in a leisure centre called Kuggen. On Tuesday morning, the visiting students had an hour-long interview with the assistant headteacher. Then, after attending maths classes in two separate classrooms, these students also had the opportunity to interview some of the Swedish students and teachers about their experience of Scheeleskolan. Finally, they visited Modern Foreign Language lessons in French, German or Spanish from 2:10 pm to 3 pm.Their presence was much appreciated, especially as the about half of the Swedish students who would usually bein these lessons were having work experience during the week instead. At 5 pm, students and teaching staff met at the bowling arena in Köping to have a good time together. On Wednesday, a group of ten students and five teachers, i.e. three people from each school, went for an educational study visit to Hammarskolan in Surahammar, a small town situated about 25 kilometers north-east of Köping. Staff at that school had made arrangements for the visitors to look around at the different buildings that belong to the school, to attend lessons in different subjects and to interview students and teachers during the day. Hammarskolan offered a free lunch for all the visitors, as was also the case at Scheeleskolan the other days of the week. Thus, the students were allowed to compare many aspects of the schools before making the final product of the project week: A presentation of their concept of the Ideal European School. The following day back in Köping, the Swedish speaking students taught basic expressions in Swedish to their new international friends in a classroom. Later that Thursday, the Erasmus+ students started working in teams with three or four members per team. They discussed how they perceived an ideal school based on the qualities of the European schools that they had seen, either in real life or by means of a PowerPoint on the first day of the week. They put down their ideas in English, as a first step toward making PowerPoints about the Ideal European School in three languages, i.e. English, French and Spanish. This teamwork continued during Friday morning and early afternoon in a rather relaxed atmosphere in the conference room. The PowerPoints were due to be presented at 2 pm to the headteacher, part of the teaching staff and most students of Year 7. However some of the Erasmus+ students weren’t quite ready at that time. We also had trouble turning on the projector in the big hall, but it all worked out well after some 15 minutes of confusion and trial. The audience showed a great deal of interest, patience and respect for the students on stage during the presentations. Many contributed to the success of the event, but the visiting teacher from Ounsdale was particularly acclaimed for his part in making things work. The whole week of Teaching/Training/Learning activities was coming to an end, but there was going to be another highlight before the end of Friday. The evening meal with funny games, delicious food and musical entertainment, including students and teachers singing a wide range of material in different languages, was a memorable finale to this week of intense activity and international rapprochement. An adult from each host family was also invited and some of them expressed how happy they were to have one or two guests at home for a week. At 7 am on Saturday morning the students gathered at the train station of Köping to start their journey back to their home countries, accompanied by their teachers. The PE teacher mentioned earlier was there to say goodbye to everybody and the guests expressed their appreciation of the arrangements for the project week. We would like to express our thanks to everyone at Scheeleskolan for making the guests feel so welcome and for organising a fantastic week. INTERNATIONAL CPD DURING THE MFL MEETING
Susanne - Finland During my stay in Sweden I visited three different language classes; German, Extra English and English. The group consisted of about 15-20 students. The classrooms had new, adjustable desks and chairs which were arranged in pairs or groups. The students had their own iPads which they used in every lesson I observed. Most of the work I saw was pair or group work. One nice example was to write a presentation of a family, then describe their hometown and house and plan their holiday trip. In this particular project the students were given clear objectives for low, medium and excellent grades. In another lesson the teacher used to stand in certain spot in the classroom when she wanted the students to sit quiet and listen to her. I also saw this same teacher use real resources both to motivate the students and to search for information. These were very useful examples for me because I have been planning to do larger projects with my students. It was also interesting to discuss about the differences and similarities in curriculum and assessments in different countries, too. I learned that Finnish teachers have more freedom to choose the topics and methods of teaching according to their own individual preferences. I also learned that e.g. in England they have set ability classes so there is not so much need for differentiation as in Finland. Also, the assessment is different in different countries and in Sweden, for example, they use much more presentations and oral test as a part of their assessments than we do in Finland. However, the most important thing I learned was that I like this kind of international co-operation. It is motivating, inspiring and refreshing and would like to continue it in the future too. Andrew - Ounsdale During the Erasmus + visit to Sweden, it was really interesting to discover and discuss the differences between the English, Swedish, Finish and German school curricula with regards to MFL. Whilst in Sweden overall guidelines and goals are clearly set out, how these are achieved and the topics taught are at the discretion of the school and individual teacher. Similarly in Finland expectations on teaching of phonics is set out but topics and skills development in other areas are at the discretion of the school and teachers. I also learned that ability setting is less evident in Sweden, Finland and Germany and so differentiation in class is a greater focus. Through being able to watch lessons in MFL (French and English) in the two Swedish schools, I was able to see this more varied approach successfully practiced. I was fortunate to observe a French lesson in which a key grammar point was practiced and then to give a different focus a song was explored in the target language. This was clearly enjoyed by the children and will certainly be an approach I will try to get in my teaching in the future. In an English lesson I also saw how genuine resources in the target language on Europe could be explored by the students to generate quizzes in Kahoot using IPads. Again, the students really enjoyed the activity and showed a good understanding of the topic and the English related to it, I can certainly see how this will be useful in my own practice in the future. Susann, Germany. Teaching modern foreign languages – my impressions During my stay in Sweden I visited three MFL classes; one lesson of German as second foreign language in Year 8 with Sandra in Köping and two lessons of English as first foreign language (Year 8 and Year 9) at Hammarskolan. In general, I found out that the technical equipment at both schools is excellent, which makes it easy to motivate the students to do research on the internet with the help of their own Ipads or by using the Whiteboards. There are no school bells so it was possible to complete all tasks without any interruption. The topic of the German lesson I saw was “Eine Familie” in Year 8. The students were asked to write an essay and prepare a presentation. They should invent a typical German family (with names, traits of character, jobs, hobbies, pets…), find them a place to live at (city-town-village, should describe the house or flat and the landscape) and send them on a trip for one week around Germany (sights, places of interest, activities). Actually I liked the lesson very much. The pupils worked in pairs or small groups. I recognized a very relaxed relationship between teacher and pupils – also supported by the fact that the pupils are allowed to call the teachers by their first names which makes the relationship very familiar. The task was given in Swedish, furthermore the students talked about the results in Swedish which is a big difference to the language approach in Germany where the classroom language is expected to be the foreign language (as far as possible). The topic of the first lesson of English I saw was “Europe”. The pupils were asked to study a workbook and to prepare at least 10 questions for a quiz with four answers, one of them correct, three of them wrong. (e.g.: What did the Ancient Greeks give us Europeans? Where did the Vikings live? Then the class used the “kahoot”- App to find out about the winners of the quiz. The pupils were very active and participated well. In the last lesson of MFL I saw (English, Year 9) the class introduced a film they had prepared for another COMENIUS- exchange and asked us questions about the German school system and our own school. During the Erasmus+ visit in Sweden we, the teachers, also used the opportunity to discuss the differences and similarities in teaching MFL in English, Finish, Swedish and German schools. It seems that the curricula in England, Sweden and Germany are quite strict and the goals are clearly described while the guidelines in Finland only require teaching phonics. The teacher there can decide on the teaching method and on the topic or media himself which can be good but also difficult. After all I can say that I liked the stay in Köping very much because it was interesting to get to know colleagues from all around Europe and investigate new teaching methods. Furthermore I really like to thank all the other participants, especially Andrew, for the management of the student’s project work on the ideal European school. Izzy - Pershore I watched a language lesson where pupils were working collaboratively to create a Kahoot and develop questions on the topic of the European Union. They needed to include information that they had read about in a booklet they had as homework. The groups worked well together and they had the freedom to be creative in the design and formulation of the questions. The class then play the finished quizzes together as a way of assessing their learning. Project Work Plan
Ounsdale Introduction PPT
Lieto Introduction PPT
Pershore Introduction PPT
Schleusingen Introduction PPT
Based on the presentations on each school and interviews of the students and teachers in Scheeleskolan in Köping and Hammarskolan in Surahammar the students created their plan for an Ideal European School, working in different foreign languages. Both the students and the teacher found the week in Sweden a wonderful experience. Have a look at the slideshow below. |
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