MAY
The last trip for the teachers' groups was held in Guildford, England from 17-24 May 2018. It was a wonderful experience for all the participants.
In England, the whole school (239 children and 24 staff members) was involved in the preparation works for the Erasmus+ week. This opportunity helped the school to enrich our teaching activity with more international and global learning themes and enabled the children to learn about different countries, cultures including their own cultural heritage.
?Our children have loved the experience of learning about the other countries and researching the language and cultural differences because it had a real purpose. They were so excited to then share their new knowledge and ask questions of the adults when they visited.? MFL subject leader
At the Opening Ceremony, after the mutual greetings Ildiko Jaro, the project leader of the Erasmus+ program explained how the INNINPRO teaching methods works and what lessons have been taught in the different countries during the educational visits in the last two years. The children were very much looking forward to trying out this new method by participating in a language lesson taught by our guest teachers the following week. The children sang the song ?Don?t stop believing? to greet our guests and set the tone for the whole week. To celebrate multilingualism our guests prepared a little ?Introduction? about their school and themselves, including some useful words from their mother-tongues.
?We were very excited to meet the teachers from so many different schools from all over Europe. Even at our first assembly we learnt a lot of interesting facts, even some new words. We really enjoyed our ceremony and it was really good that everyone was involved.? Comment from Year 4 child
On the 18th May, in the afternoon we held a tea party on the school ground to celebrate Multilingualism and cultural diversity. In the evening we held a conference about Cultural Diversity and multilingualism in our community. We had eight speakers from various organisations: local schools, REMA, SMEF, just to name a few. This conference helped us to gain a deeper understanding of multilingualism and EAL support. The participants were able to share ideas and good practise and network. Also, we were able to build new links or bring our existing relations into a profounder level which will enable us to provide better support to EAL children and families in the future. The conference enabled us to share the basics of the INNINPRO method with other schools and the local community, disseminate our learning and legacy from this project and build new links with schools with similar interests to collaborate and establish a longer-term network.
During the weekend the whole Erasmus team participated in different cultural activities (Royal Wedding Garden Party, trip to Shere, sightseeing in London, trip to Polesden Lacey (National Trust), just to name a few).
On the following week all our visitors taught a lesson of their own language using the INNINPRO methodology. We put the children from the whole upper school into 5 mixed ability groups. Each country (Hungary, Greece, Lithuania, Spain and Turkey) taught a lesson of their own language. In each lesson at least 2 people from our staff participated to watch and record the lessons. Our teachers and visitors had an opportunity later in the day, to discuss and assess their experience of the lessons.We were able to record all lessons for future reference and use.
Throughout the Erasmus week all class in each year group had both curricular and extra-curricular activities related to multilingualism and foreign languages. As mentioned above, during the preparation, each class did in depth research of the participating countries before and during the Erasmus week therefore learnt a lot about the participating countries. They became interested not just in these cultures but also their bilingual peers? languages and heritages. EAL (English as a second language) children had an opportunity both in assemblies and in class to talk about their culture and language.
We visited the George Abbot Secondary School in Guildford and watched French and Spanish lessons in the Lanesborough School. After each visit the participants had a meeting to discuss their experience and share their opinions.
On the 23rd May we held a celebratory performance of Alice in Wonderland followed by a Farewell Dinner to celebrate our achievements of the 2 years project and build links with the local community while disseminating the program`s results.
GREECE IS VISITING BUSHY HILL JUNIOR SCHOOL IN GUILDFORD, ENGLAND.
"ΠΑΤΡΙΣ",our local newspaper,was really kind to publish an article on our visit to England.
