The Council of Europe and the new CEFR Descriptors are working to establish a vision about internationalism and, as a consequence, a more concrete idea of European citizenship.
What Schools are invited to do is to leave their original self-referentiality (my school, my class…) and open to new perspectives as well as to new exchanges of good practices.
Step 1: Give Internationalism a place in the school.
What a brilliant Headteacher should do, is to start the first Board of Teacher with a real promotion of Internationalism. In their Strategic Guidelines, Headteachers should invest in a Project Referent for Internationalism who will lead a group of teachers - not necessarily all language teachers, actually a winning idea would be engaging also STEM and STEAM teachers, ideally teachers from different fields, so to promote Internationalism to all extents.
The School has to know that the respect for other cultures comes through the respect for the languages.
When you hear “The one of English” (=the teacher of English) in a tone which may sound disrespectful to some extent, maybe that’s a clear evidence that something must be done in that school.
The language teacher is a key to open the door towards the world of plurilinguism and multiculturalism.
S/he will help the colleagues with the language and with the globetrotter attitude, as travellers and citizens of the world.
Step 2: Take part in special days.
Once the group is formed, it is important (and relevant to the aim) that key actions are promoted.
Participating to International Days such as the European Day of Languages, the Code Week, World Water Day etc. is a first step which would lead to a group participation in further activities.
This could also become a cross-curricular activity which may be carried out by the whole school - in case of Comprehensive Schools this could be a vertical activity, with a scalability that covers preschool, primary school and secondary school.
A suggestion to start with could be the choice of a specific European Day. The teachers of the Internationalism team will reflect on the different subjects (and their scalability) that could be covered and propose some activities to the board of teachers.
Working together with the digital team may be an idea to have a digital archive of the products and activities carried out, materials needed and a quick presentation not only for the Board of Teachers but also for the stakeholders (in terms of Open Day or even a dissemination in the local area/municipality).
An example of Special Day may be the European Day of Languages. You can invite your students to create a digital dictionary of some words they may hear in different languages (also considering if we have students of different nationalities or parents/relatives/friends of different roots) or of a message you want to have in different languages. Lower grades may work on making the European flags (which may be a decoration of the school), other classes may collect the words/messages, other activities may be creating the digital dictionary (choosing a specific web tool), a word art (by using Tagul) with the different words in the different languages, Guess What Language games or even TPR activities to make students practice the new words and miming or drawing the symbols of the different countries (you can have Arts, History and Music connected, too!). After that, you can think about some coding activities and other activities about the Countries of the languages involved. A good idea would be presenting the work in an open-class (with families and stakeholders too) with an Escape Game to engage all (with mobile devices in a BYOD mode!), and let the audience discover more about other languages and cultures.
Step 3 - European projects
The next step is putting into a real practice the experiences so far.
eTwinning and Erasmus+ projects are some of the best experiences that a School may have.
eTwinning helps schools from different areas and Countries to cooperate and work together on a specific topic which involves online interaction, mediation and the communication in another European language (usually English). Students and teachers work and then upload their materials online. There’s a forum for discussions and also the opportunity to have web conferences - students may see each other through the platform which also allows videoconferences.
Erasmus+ projects are maybe the best opportunity ever. The exchange of good practices, the mobilities of teachers and students (and also general staff as well) allow us to have a complete vision of the School System across Europe and, of course, to learn how to better our School.
It’s not a “travel aboard” or a “nice holiday abroad” as, unluckily, still many teachers (who probably should do anything else but teaching) think of.
It’s the will of “sharing and caring” as often repeated.
Staying together with colleagues from other parts of Europe is something really enriching.
You know what goes right and what goes wrong in your school and, generally speaking, in your Country. Yet when you see different realities you can experience the spirit behind. You know what gives school the best opportunity to become really the place for learning and the place of learning.
You can export your good practices and bring with you the best practices of the other colleagues, and this is will help Education in being more and more dynamic and enriched.
Because it comes from real needs, real experiences, real motivations.
We must be motivated and motivate our students, and what is better than showing our students the other realities that are under the same sky?
Time to pack our suitcase and leave for a new, enriching adventure!
Panzarella Angela (02/08/1978), laureata in lingue e letterature straniere moderne (inglese e serbocroato) con indirizzo filologico letterario, un’ulteriore laurea in lettere (storia delle tradizioni popolari) presso La Sapienza di Roma, master in traduzione, abilitazione SSIS (A345/A346), master CeCLIL (Ca’ Foscari) e Metodologie CLIL nel XXI secolo (IUL Firenze), benemerenza in Filologia (Philology Sila Trophy, per il saggio “As You Like Her…”), expertise in bilingual education since primary years, dopo anni di docenza nella scuola secondaria di secondo grado, insegna inglese nella scuola primaria per la sperimentazione e il proseguimento dell’esperienza bilingue (IBI-BEI, istruzione bilingue, bilingual education, CLIL & technoCLIL) nella provincia di Milano. E’ formatrice riconosciuta dall’USR Lombardia (per corsi linguistici e metodologici CLIL, technoCLIL e webtools per la didattica) e certificatrice Cambridge Young Learners (International House) ed ESOL (Cambridge, International House, English Speaking Board). Referente per l’Internazionalizzazione, è anche esperta eTwinning, Erasmus+ ed Europrogettazione, con partecipazione a seminari multilaterali in Italia, Europa e Paesi del Mediterraneo. Attiva con pubblicazioni anche su Scientix e per Stem Discovery Week. Ha scritto per i suoi “gnomi” (come si diverte a chiamarli, e per i quali è Miss Angela), la collana completa di testi per la didattica bilingue 100% CLIL e technoCLIL per la scuola primaria.