GaR in Bewegung
Start date: Jun 1, 2015,
End date: May 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
The ‚Gymnasium am Rotenbühl (GaR)‘ considers itself a multicultural learning environment. Currently students of 26 different nationalities attend the GAR. Since 2001 some subjects have been taught in English (‚bilingual school profile‘). The promotion of language competence and intercultural communication is a key aspect in the daily school life of the GAR. Bilingual teaching is already a vital component in order to support the language competence of our students. However, to create a multilingually and multiculturally open community, further steps are necessary.
Multiculturalism and multilingualism have to be ‚lived‘ in our every-day-life at school – be it through opennness for intercultural issues and moral values, through maintaining international encounters and partnerships, also with regard to sports, or through openness concerning all questions of understanding between people of different origins.
The Erasmus+-Project ‚GaR in Bewegung‘ (= GaR in motion) therefore supports the Europeon development plan for the qualification of teachers. The thorough understanding of language learning in school and the programmatic orientation of the school towards internationality as well as the cooperation of different subjects and teachers can only be successful, if teachers consider themselves to be a ‚professional learning community‘.
The professional qualification of bilingual teachers is a crucial requirement for the ongoing success of the current school developing process. Therefore, two teachers of the GAR took part in courses for the integration of contentual and linguistic learning in England. In these courses methodological as well as contentual questions of modern teaching were discussed.
During the exchange with teachers and participants from other European countries, the teachers get impulses for their teaching and new materials to improve the quality of their teaching. In the course for English teachers a teacher learns new methods and activities to motivate students while learning English. By visiting different school classes and through the exchange with English colleagues they gain an insight in the English school system.
However, in the course of the qualification, the focus not only lies on language teaching.
The GAR also supports the development of web-based teaching through an adequate qualification of our staff. Therefore, the GAR is interested in using the experience and the knowledge of partners in Europe who are still ahead of us regarding the development of web-based teaching. Therefore, a teacher takes part in a workshop for innovative technologies in the classroom in England. In a requested EU-Project for web-based teaching those experiences can be used directly in project work.
A Spanish teacher from our school will attend classes in a Spanish school during a two-week stay at our partner school I.E.S. Poeta Garcia Gutierrez in Chicklana de la Frontera/Spain, which has a bilingual German part. The experiences will be shared with the collegues at the GAR and provide them with new ideas for their teaching in Spanish as well as in German lessons. Moreover, during the stay in Spain, the teacher will be able to make contact with people in the school environment, in ordert to prepare an EU-project for work- and study orientation.
The ability of a school to change as a whole is an important, if not even the most important, factor for the quality of schools and their teaching nowadays. To foster and strenghten this ability, qualified stuff is necessary that does not only know the basics and methods of change-management, but also has the ideas, creativity and social skills that it takes to inspire and captivate other colleagues. In the course of a long-term development plan suitable people in the areas mentioned above will be qualified, supported and reassured in their dedication.
Thus a teacher takes part in a workshop for ‚strategic project management‘ in Denmark, in order to be able to accompany the supervision and evaluation of the school developing process and the organisation of international projects professionally with the knowledge the teacher gained during the qualification course.
With this programme the GAR is preparing to face the challanges oft he 21st century: globalization, linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity as well as the understanding and communication across national, cultural and ethnic barriers.