Project Title: Barcelona and Berlin - Living in two European Metropolises - Exploring Challenges and Approaches to SolutionsWith this project, the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium Berlin and the Instituto Jaume Balmes Barcelona are starting a long-term cooperation in foreign language teaching (Spanish and German) for their students at secondary level 2. The project combines elements of modern foreign language didactics with aspects of a holistic, personality-forming pedagogy. This is done by incorporating the following aspects:1) Thematic aspect: Barcelona and Berlin are two European metropolises with very complex urban societies that are characterised by great diversity. This leads to a multitude of challenges for the people living there together. At the same time, metropolises are always laboratories for solutions that can be used to respond to such challenges. In the course of the project, the pupils research such projects in their home cities, present them to their project partners in texts on eTwinning and then explore them with their local exchange partners during their mutual visits. All experiences are fed into a joint audiovisual reportage, which is the creative end product of the project. We assume that this aspect of the content will have a motivational effect on the pupils, as it directly ties in with their experience, gives them the opportunity to contribute their own interests and is solution-oriented.2) Foreign language didactic aspect: The texts developed in the course of the on-site explorations are used to achieve concrete foreign language didactic goals: a) a pupil-centred approach to mediation competence, i.e. the correct transfer of essential contents from a student’s second language into their first language. This is done on the basis of the texts which pupils (SuS) exchange and work on with each other via eTwinning. b) Using the same approach, the SuS also work on other relevant text concerns (articles, comments) and expand their repertoire of linguistic means in the foreign language.3) Combining digital learning with local learning: We explore the potential of eTwinning to prepare and follow up concrete learning encounters between people and expect a motivating effect for our pupils through this integration of digital and analogue learning environments.4) Inclusion of mindfulness: The content work in the languages and on the texts is flanked by the teaching of mindfulness techniques to the SuS and to the teachers accompanying the project. It is of interest to find out to what extent the scientifically proven stress-reducing and quality-of-life enhancing aspect of mindfulness has a concrete effect on individuals in everyday school life. The project participants are building on several years of experience in this field at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium.The project is initiated by Dr. Adrian Bröking (Head of Spanish and trainer for mindfulness at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium) and Cristina Zamora (Head of German at the Instituto Jaume Balmes). Dr. Bröking is in charge of the project. The target group are high school students in Spanish (Berlin) and German (Barcelona). The project is scheduled for two school years (2019-20 and 2020-21). In the first school year, the project with all its components will be tested for its suitability. In the second school year, any necessary fine adjustments will be made and further experience gained. In the course of both school years, different groups of pupils interact. There are 12-20 SuS of both partner schools from the 11th school year working together, both virtually and during a visit to both cities. In addition to the school trips, there are two short-term advanced training courses in the first project year, in which all teachers involved in the project familiarise themselves with the mindfulness techniques, which are then taught to the students during the school trips.Both schools hope that the project will enable them to enter into a trusting, long-standing school partnership that will enable them to further deepen their expertise in the teaching of foreign languages and motivate more pupils than before to continue learning the foreign language in the last two years of their schooling. Beyond these concrete foreign language didactic goals, SuS and the teachers of both schools also expect general impulses for their joint work by exploring the potential of mindfulness to provide resilience in hectic everyday school life.

Our schools want to fully prepare pupils for life and the European labour market by providing high-quality education. Through this project we want to exchange good practices concerning entrepreneurship and English language education. One of the main objectives is exploring business differences and similarities in both countries and within the European framework to boost pupils' sense of entrepreneurship and improve our entrepreneurship and English language education. Another essential objective is empowering our pupils on a personal level. We have observed that they are often insecure and not self-reliant enough. They have difficulties assessing their own abilities and little faith in themselves. The project will help them broaden their mind and improve their competences and attitudes. We need to support our pupils in acquiring and developing their basic skills and competences, not only with regard to their education and career, but on a personal level as well to ensure they evolve into strong, self-reliant and competent individuals. This project will take them out of their comfort zone and let them experience different educational and entrepreneurial systems in the European framework. This can only be done through the cooperation between our educational institutions and with external partners. All pupils studying Retail and Marketing & Entrepreneurship in 5th year of secondary education at Instituut Sint-Lutgardis and Economics in post-compulsory education at Institut Jaume Almera will be involved in the project. Of this group of about 45 pupils 38, i.e. 19 of each school, will take part in the exchanges. They are 16 to 19 years old. 3 Belgian and 4 Spanish teachers are in charge of the project. They will be supported by other teachers and staff of both schools. The schools’ staff and the pupils’ parents will participate in various activities and be the host families during the exchanges. Another partner are the local corporations and their umbrella organisations who will teach pupils about the day-to-day running of a business and the process of importing and exporting goods. They are essential since studying their businesses will reveal the differences and similarities concerning entrepreneurship between the two countries. A final partner is the town council, who will welcome the visitors and discuss the town’s politics and assets.There will be several activities that focus on who the pupils are, matching them to a pupil of the other school and getting to know the other participants, their school, educational system and town better. This will be done by means of videos, presentations and other class assignments. Other activities will focus on the exchange of products and entrepreneurship. The pupils will look for and contact businesses. They will pay preparatory visits to companies, cities and regions to prepare the programme of the exchanges. Moreover, the pupils will make arrangements for the visitors. The assignments will lead to a thorough organisation of transport, accommodation, meals and activities. The activities and mobilities will be evaluated afterwards. In these evaluation activities new methods can be assessed. They will be implemented once the necessary adaptations have been made. The good practices and gathered knowledge will be clustered so these can benefit all members of the schools’ communities.By studying the differences and similarities concerning entrepreneurship the pupils should gain more insight in the possibilities of entrepreneurship within the European market. The extensive communication with the partners in the English language shall improve their language skills. While they may be insecure at first, they will gain more confidence in their knowledge, competences and language skills since they will work towards a common goal with peers. The various assignments at home and during the exchanges will make them more self-reliant. Their built-up confidence and self-reliance will empower them to take initiative and become more inquisitive, thus exploiting each learning opportunity to the fullest. They will still benefit from this in their future and professional lives. The schools will benefit in the long term because of the exchange of good practices and the expansion of their network with valuable partners. The project will contribute to the implementation of high-quality entrepreneurial and English language education through the produced tools and knowledge. This gained knowledge about best practices and on prompting and improving pupils’ sense of entrepreneurship will help us create more and better learning opportunities for the following generations. The physical products will be the pupils’ portfolios and for teachers files with good practices on entrepreneurship education and learning English in a real life context containing methods and best practices, thus giving teachers the tools for high-quality education and pupils the means to take charge of their own education.

"""My Way, Your Way, Our Shared Cultural Identities"" is an innovative inter-cultural communication project involving schools from Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Sweden. Its rationale is based on the understanding that mobility, an integral part of our increasingly globalized world, presents challenges arising from the cultural differences that are an intrinsic part of people's complex identities. Therefore, knowledge and awareness of how culture impacts communication is essential in effective cross- cultural communication. The project has sought to a) develop students' understandings of the interrelated nature of language, culture and communication; b) develop students' skills to spot, reflect and deal with culture bumps; c) enhance students' confidence when encountering unfamiliar environment; d) develop students' presentation skills; e) train students to conduct interviews to extract relevant information, analyse it, and present it in both oral and written form; f) develop students' curiosity towards different cultures and languages;g) to prepare students for study and work in inter-cultural settings;h) hone students' IT skills through utilizing innovative applications;i) develop a broader view of what European identity means to foster responsible citizenship skills;g) enrich teachers' classroom instruction methods and schools' curricula.This project has built on the rich experience all schools have with mobility to design a learning resource for training students to take stock of their inter-cultural experiences and develop understandings of the interrelated nature of language, culture and communication. The resource pack contains critical incidents and videos based on the experiences of the participants from the project.The methodology used to design the resource pack has used the culture assimilator, a cognitive approach in inter-cultural training based on the meaning attribution method. During the preparation stage, participants were trained through simulation games and inter-cultural training activities aiming to develop their sensitivity and awareness of identity formation, empathy, ethnocentrism, values, stereotypes, the dynamic and emergent nature of culture and strategies to decenter and re-frame in order to negotiate meanings. This learning resource has been beneficial on two levels - through the process of its designing and the outcome itself.As the participants experienced cultural variation, they gained knowledge about what, how and why cultures do their shared practices; through the culture-contrast approach and reflective practices they gained insights into the value systems of both their own and other cultures; their insights helped them develop skills of successful communication in diverse settings and resulted in the production of learning resources for use by all who are interested in intercultural education. The interactive nature of the resources have had a double effect - developing students' IT skills and making the materials appealing to a wide on-line audience. In addition, both teachers and students have learnt to deal with culture by adopting the culture assimilator approach, which have enriched their classroom practices and the school curricula in several subjects. Outcomes :1) ""Cultural Detectives in Action""- an OER pack for analyzing culturally diverse behavior, which consists of: -20 critical incidents (text, video, art, photography);- teachers' notes.The resources have recorded and enacted misunderstandings based on cultural differences drawn from students' authentic experiences. The resources are accompanied by teacher's notes explaining the rationale, objectives and procedure to assist educators who will be interested in implementing these in their practice. The critical incidents and the teachers' notes are available online and on paper to all participating schools to integrate in all classes where culture is an issue. Also, they are a convenient tool to prepare students who are to embark on a cultural exchange. Their online status makes them accessible to an audience outside our immediate school communities and ensures its wider impact. Some of the critical incidents have been translated into Bulgarian and Italian to make them accessible to teachers who do not speak English. 2) Intellectual Output: ""CulturAll” - this is an interactive resource whose purpose is to raise awareness of cultural facts about our own countries through the intercultural journeys the main characters from each country take and the challenges they encounter. This is a game created by using a web application and it practices intercultural learning in a fun and innovative way."

"FuturEYEzing is a project about the future of our students. The goal of FuturEYEzing was to help students realize that their actions affect the future; that they have the power to create both positive and negative change in their world. This project worked actively to cultivate active citizenship through a structured series of activities, where students explored their personal, cultural and global contexts from a past-present-future perspective. Through research and collaboration with their peers from other countries, students explored the interrelated nature of life and the global impact of human choices. This project was topic-based but skills-driven. Though exploring several topics, students developed a specific set of skills. The topics expanded from personal to global, starting with health and identity issues, moving on to education, work and technology, environmental issues and free time, and finally addressing the UN goals for 2030. Students researched and analyzed the topics, and then presented and discussed their findings. Each topic started with a brief exploration of history and an evaluation of our current circumstances. Then, students shared this background information with their peers from the other countries , and reflected on the future (""FuturEYES"") through the lens of that topic in a collaborative way. Students published their reflections and insights on blogs, which have become resources for further discussions beyond the project. This project involved a total of 50 students (14-15 years old) and 8 teachers from each participating country. Students used elements of a methodology developed for Future Studies. The first stage was to identify and monitor change. For example, for the topic of Health and Identity, students designed questionnaires and conducted surveys with their families to collect data about habits and compare similarities and differences. For the topic of Education and Work, the students researched education systems of their respective partners and prepared presentations. Interviews with people doing different jobs featured challenges and prospects in the workplace. For the topic of Environment and Leisure Time, the students researched major environmental issues of the world today to prepare campaigns which they conducted in their respective schools. This work prior to the exchanges was essential for the discussions of trends that followed when participants met face-to-face.The second stage was to critique and analyze change, where students looked into contemporary research and trends regarding the topic. We used online resources, visited institutions, organized workshops, published insights on the blogs. The third and fourth stages involved students in imagining alternatives and focusing on envisioning preferred alternatives and a course of action. These were important stages of the project where the students used their research findings and the understandings gained to make predictions as to the possible scenarios of social development in the future. Topics of future predictions involves healthy lifestyle and the importance of technology, education trends, smart cities, skills to succeed in one’s job or life in general, the most important problem in the future and ways to tackle it. These were captured on video, reflections in blogs or padlets. The UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example, were explored by the students through quizzes, songs, games, problem-solving activities and visits to local institutions. The final activity was a live speech-giving event, similar to a TED-talk show, where the students analyzed trends related to the goals and predicted possible outcomes/scenarios factoring human action, active citizenship, etc. The tools used during the project to collect data were interviews, field trips, media texts analyses and trend assessments. We went through the above stages for all four steps/topics of the project. The students researched the topics in national groups but analyzed and presented their findings in cross-cultural teams and then published on our blogs. This project dealt with the future, aiming for creating an impact on attitudes towards life. From the feedback we received from the students and parents, we noticed increased awareness of the problems the world faces; better knowledge of the factors that affect social trends and the importance of informed, responsible action to fight inequality, poverty, poor sanitation and climate change, to name just a few. In this sense, the project has made the students better prepared for their lives in the future. The dissemination activities on the other hand, informed our respective communities of the issues dealt with by the project."

The general objectives of the project were to create a link between the world of work and school, to persuade the students to approach the reality of the workplace and understand its opportunities and dynamics. The participants of the project were 140 students, 25 teachers and 10 staff members in total. Throughout the two years up to approximately 1,600 people (students, teachers, member of the staff, experts, members of the local community, members of the associated partners) were involved in the activities organized by the project.The project consisted of a series of activities designed to teach students about the economic scenario facing the next generation and to better evaluate the professional opportunities that such scenarios will provide them with and to be fully aware of the skills required. We focused on the creation of a wide range of resources, lessons and activities to enhance school curricula. These included the areas of skills development, career education, work experience, entrepreneurship as well as the key competences of ICT, language and statistics. Our project addressed several educational policy areas including: • developing basic and transferable skills such as entrepreneurship, digital skills and multilingualism, using innovative and student-centered pedagogical approaches • promoting stronger coherence between different EU and national skill recognition supports, to ensure that skills and qualifications can be easily recognized across borders.The project was structured in three types of activities. The FIRST TYPE included three strands: 1. The analysis of the economic production of each partner country by students, supported by the corporation that represent the labor market2. The identification of professionals and of the skills most in demand in its territory. Reflections on training courses designed to respond to these requests and how the school can provide the tools to undertake such courses and easily integrate them into the labor market.3. Statistical analysis of early school leavers focusing on the problems and reasons for leaving school early and to suggest ways of preventing early school leaving. The students first collected and analyzed information. Next, they worked in international groups and compared their findings and ideas. They finalized all the results in a presentation including all the countries, main findings and suggestions for prevention. The products of this phase were shared on the eTwinning platform and on a website specifically created by the students.The SECOND TYPE involved designing training session to fill gaps in the education system which were identified in the first phase and to provide students with the tools that will facilitate their integration into the labor market. These interventions included: targeted courses, meetings with representatives at various levels of the production world, informational materials, both in hard copies and digital copies. Teachers collaborated with students in the production of teaching materials, in hard copies or digital material, which could be used in all classes of the institutions involved, even in the years to come. At the end of the first two phases of the project, a final presentation and other meetings were scheduled in which the following will be presented: the data from the survey on the socio-economic scenario of each partner country, employment opportunities provided by the geographical areas involved in the project, educational materials developed by teachers and training partners. These materials are shared on the project website.The THIRD TYPE consisted of starting a mini company on a global level during the project. The mini company supported European entrepreneurship, incorporated the drafting and delivery of a business plan, identified sources of support and legal requirements within a European context regarding our schools and regional companies. Students produced a product prototype of an eco-friendly flip pen, designed an advertising campaign to include digital marketing, created materials to promote their product and tried to persuade several local businesspeople to support them. The product was chosen by the participating students during the first international meeting in Gustrow. The chosen product is relevant as it supports environmentally friendly schools. Students kept pictures, video and diaries and received feedback on their team and individual performances by teachers, students and businesspeople. We also asked students to present their internship experiences and collect documentation and feedback. It was of great importance for the students to get to know the different forms of internships in the different counties. The students also understood that internships in one of the participating countries could be a future option for them.