Erasmus Plus Project

A year ago, almost to the day, I was lucky enough to make contact with a like-minded teacher at 'le Collège Calmette et Guérin d’Écueillé" who was searching for a UK partner. Neither of us could have predicted the position we would now be in and the amazing times that are ahead of us. 

We immediately linked our Year 9 and 10 pupils who were thrilled to be making friends in another country. I was proud of how fully and enthusiastically they embraced this link; they had great fun sharing photos, letters, emails, questionnaires, gifts, birthday cards, Christmas cards... not to mention facebook, twitter and instagram accounts - I'm told! We used class time and homeworks to encourage regular contact to be established during the academic year and now they are left to their own devices. Technology these days makes keeping in touch so much easier and I sincerely hope that some of them will still be in touch with each other in 30 years, like I am with my French penfriend.

Meanwhile, Sophie and I started thinking on a BIGGER scale and set about preparing a proposal for an Erasmus Plus project. Along with other colleagues, found via the Etwinning website, we spent hours and hours Skyping and emailing to fine-tune our proposal. We settled on the name "Home Sweet Home" which gave us a clear theme to which every strand of the project would link.

After 6 months of preparation, we submitted our very detailed and extremely lengthy proposal and then the long wait began...

5 months later (last Thursday) we were notified that - out of thousands and thousands of projects - our project had been selected for funding by the European Commission. We are so delighted, shocked, surprised and also a little daunted! Now the real work (and fun) begins. 

Our project involves 5 schools: Heathfield School in the UK, Collège Calmette et Guérin d’Écueillé in France, Santo Domingo in Spain, Music School of Volos in Greece and Yusufca Sehit Irfan Yaman Orta Okulu in Turkey and its duration is 3 years. During this time, ambassadors from each school will have the chance to travel to each of the 4 other countries and every member of the school will experience 'virtual' collaboration with pupils from other countries on joint projects and ventures. Exciting times afoot!

Our key priorities include:

• multilingualism
• digital skills
• employability

and all partners will work towards:

• the Europass Language Passport and...
• Heathfield Employability for Life Charter.

The first stage of the project involves a planning meeting in November which will be held in France. After which I will be able to share much more information with you.

Our twitter account for the project is @erasmus_home

If anyone is going through the process of writing an Erasmus project and needs help or advice, please feel free to contact me @madame_ewhite

Biggest MFL Department in the world - Twitter!

I have finally decided to start blogging, not because I have anything particularly groundbreaking (or even particularly interesting) to say, but as a way of sharing resources and as somewhere to keep track of all of the interesting things I come across. 

I avoided Twitter for a long time, but now...

I'm a convert! I use it almost exclusively for CPD purposes - have done for quite a while now. During this academic year, I have found it an invaluable way of networking, supporting and sharing with other MFL (Modern Foreign Languages) teachers. I am selective about who to follow as I really only want to use Twitter for professional purposes and had no intention of having a second Facebook! (Where I already hear enough about other people's cats and how many eggs they had for breakfast!) 

The teachers that I've come across via twitter (who sometimes mention personal info too - which is absolutely fine by me) love to share. They selflessly provide links for resources and offer help at the slightest hint of a question. 

The drawbacks... 

The only issue I have personally had with Twitter so far is information overload. Initially, I was coming across so many new ideas, apps and links that I could barely keep up! I think I am getting much better at filtering now. I'm hoping this blog will end up saving me time rather than creating more for me to do!

There are, however, problems that I've heard about such as people getting upset when others use their resources without acknowledging. On this issue I will cite one of my favourite mantras, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." (Harry S Truman.) I live by this, I think that many teachers do. The other point I'd add is that most ideas are recycled anyway, very few are brand new. By sharing and working together we can achieve so much more... The other negative is that, like any social media, people can be quite critical. There's an etiquette that ought to be followed which for me is like in 'real' life... "Do unto others..."

Advice for newbies...

I would advise any MFL teachers new to Twitter to seek out #mfltwitterati and then just keep following anyone and everyone associated with languages. I started like this and then cut down as I got more used to what I was doing and found out who was of interest to me.

When searching for something in particular either search using a hashtag (#) or tweet mentioning #mfltwitterati or a particular person. (Prominent tweeters/twitterers in languages for me are @joedale @JoTidmarsh @HelenMyers @morganmfl @dominic_mcg @janbaker97 @MsVCooke @Langwitch @SylvieBRawlings @dawson_serena @Langnut @amandasalt @missmclachlan - I immediately regretted starting this list because actually I could go on and on!)

So that's it, first blog done!