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La vigne au carrefour des cultures latines
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Aug 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The project entitled “the Vineyard at the crossroads of Latin cultures” was started by 3 teachers at Victor Louis Secondary School in Talence, France. They have long been involved in school projects linked to Europe and how adolescents envision it. For example, they have participated in the European Citizenship Competition organized by the Conseil Géneral de la Gironde (Regional Council of the Gironde Department), which has regularly rewarded their pupils. The Regional Council has acknowledged their commitment and awarded them a grant which enabled the teachers to go and meet European colleagues so as to initiate the Comenius project they had in mind. As a consequence, the present application is the result of these three years of preparation and reflexion, and also participation in training courses on European Exchanges. The starting point of the team was a Franco-Romanian collaboration, as the Regional Council was keen to encourage links with new members of the European Union. The organising team went to Iasi in November 2012. The exchanges with the Romanian colleagues were rich and highlighted the natural relationship between French and Romanian, two very close Latin languages despite the distance between the two countries. The other key point for people from Bordeaux was the presence of a vineyard next to both cities. These common features marked the path for our future work: 'so far, and yet so close'. That is the objective of our project: how can we reach out to others through our immediate environment? Our goal is mainly patrimonial but also cultural, scientific and linguistic. It should enable us to explore how Latin we are, what our common heritage is as far as the environment/background is concerned, that is, the vineyard the Romans bequeathed us. We tried to find partners with the same cultural features. Several Italian secondary schools answered our ad on eTwinning and we chose Aversa as soon as February 2013 and since then, we have been in communication regularly. Thus, the team in composed of three highly motivated schools in France (Talence), Italy (Aversa) and Romania (Iasi). All are urban schools which cater for a public that is heterogeneous both in terms of levels and of social and economic background. It is composed of adolescents in need of references and difficult to motivate. The themes of our three-year project are the following: sciences and technology for the first year; arts and literature for the second year; human and social sciences for the third year. They will result in a production each year: 'Vino Dico', a 4-language dictionary of wine-growing vocabulary; an exhibition of photographs of the vineyards with texts by writers and our pupils; the production of a wine bottle label and a map of the wine trade. Each production is carried out jointly by pupils from the 3 countries, which makes it necessary for them to meet annually. Depending on the theme and the curiculum, pupils of different ages and levels will work on the project, so that as many adolescents as possible are involved. Each month, groups of pupils will write newspaper articles for the web journal of the project. The project will have different impacts depending on the countries and the participants. Generally speaking, we wish their practice of ancient and modern languages to improve. The multidisciplinary approach should enable low-performing students to progress and should keep them motivated. Besides, the participant from the three urban secondary schools should be able to explore, even sometimes discover, their wine-growing environment and the job opportunities it offers. This common cultural heritage is the driving force that will guide adolescents in the construction of their European citizen identity by enabling them to discover what makes them both similar to, and different from, others. The project should also give teachers the opportunity to enrich their teaching practices and to discover other forms of teaching. The multidisciplinary themes and the number of teachers involved each year require annual meetings to see the project through. During the third year, we will assess the results of our project and propose a training period for our foreign colleagues and also French teachers on “archaeology and territory: archaeology as a link between territories”. For the teams of teachers involved, it could be the starting point of other collaborations, other projects.

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