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Európai iskolahálózat kiépítésének nyelvi és módszertani előkészítése az Apor Vilmos Katolikus Iskolaközpontban
Start date: Jul 1, 2016, End date: Jun 30, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Four themes have been prevalent in shaping the culture and pedagogical practice of Apor Vilmos Catholic School Centre during the 23 years of its existence: (1) spiritual and religious development, (2) teaching of foreign languages and a personal experience of European culture, (3) development of ICT skills and (4) an inclusive atmosphere and development competences supporting children with special educational needs. Committed to further strengthening these foci the school has formulated a 7-year development plan.The European dimension of the development plan focuses on integrating the school and its teachers into the European subject-related professional networks and providing the necessary language competences through conscious utilisation of co-operation and mobility programmes.The first project acts as a pilot in many respects: the 4 participants take part in characteristically different courses.Two participants are applying for Spanish language courses not directly relevant to their primary subjects. The school is planning to use the more diverse language competences as a leverage to strengthen the quality of courses for Spanish and French languages, which are currently optional and in many cases treated as of secondary importance even by the students. (Choosing either English or German as the first foreign language is compulsory, while the previous two languages can only be opted for as second foreign language in 9-12th grades, where they still have to compete with the previously un-picked German or English, respectively.) Our goal is to form cross-subject teaching teams, which are able to provide high-quality language and cultural activities for the students, and which would be qualified to manage the revitalised twin school relationships. Spanish is the first such team to be formed.One participant, who teaches French, history and religious studies (RE) has chosen an immersion course in contemporary French culture, which provides value added in the fields of all three of his subjects. Besides, being the first similar course to be tested this provides a great opportunity for the school to evaluate the ways of capitalising on the experiences of such courses.One participant is to take part in a methodological course. Her case is more of a follow-up or capitalisation of earlier mobilities, therefore apart from the anticipated new practices and pedagogical benefits, the school expects to see a documentation of synergies with previous courses.During the selection of participants there was a focus on pre-existing knowledge about the target area/language. This enables utilising the preparation phase for methodological and process clarification, which in turn results in a conscious prioritisation of knowledge transfer and valorisation. After the courses all experiences are to be discussed jointly with the subject workteams, resulting in a consensual definition of the targets for follow-up projects.The scope of range of mobilities will gradually be extended, in accordance with the goals of the long-term development plan, with courses for other primary and secondary foreign languages and subject-related job shadowing activities, student mobilities and domestic development work.Parallel to the courses an intensive school twinning and network-building effort will be initiated, which aims at providing sustainability for the results of international development efforts, and raising the level and role of personal experience not only in language education but in other subjects as well. In the course of these co-operations the school plans to utilise the benefits provided by the eTwinning portal and community, complementing the rarer personal contacts with continuous, intensive virtual collaboration.For the communication of project results the school uses not only the traditional platforms (presentations at meetings, PR-articles, appearances in local TV news, report on the school website), but also some tools not commonly utilised in this context: blogs, videostreams/video recordings, or even a live online Q&A session.
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