Bericht von Bärbel Tränkle, FLA Ambassador and Lizzie Cairns, ELA.
Bärbel Tränkle from Germany worked as a Foreign Language Assistant at Devonport High School for Girls in Plymouth. She paired up with Lizzie Cairns, an English Language Assistant in Germany, through the FLA Ambassadors programme, and they succesfully involved their pupils in bilateral project activities.
E-friends project
There were about 30 students involved in each school who regularly wrote emails to their partners. The aim was for our students to improve their German/English language skills and to make them realise that you can use your language skills outside of the classroom and help your partners to improve their language skills. Most importantly, the aim was for students to learn a lot about everyday life, traditions and culture in the other country. We think most of our students found out a lot about what life for young people is like in Germany and in the UK!
Together with some of the British pupils, we put this booklet together (abbreviated): eFriends booklet (1,7KB)
Video exchange
As the project went very well for the first two months, we looked for something new to make it even more exciting and enjoyable, and came up with the idea of a video exchange between the schools. So, in March, we started recording short videos, introducing ourselves and showing our partners around our schools. We exchanged the videos and were finally able to watch them in May. It was really interesting for all of us to see our partners and their school and, for the British girls, the clothes the Germans can wear to school! The video exchange was certainly the most exciting part of the project!
"Vielen Dank" and "Thank you very much"!
We really enjoyed working with our students during this year, and hope that they have enjoyed and learnt a lot as well. We would like to say "Vielen Dank!" or "Thank you very much!" to our students for showing so much interest and working so hard with us this year. We are sure they have extended their knowledge of German/English and Germany/England and made a contribution to increased understanding between young people from the UK and Germany.
Here is a presentation by Bärbel and Lizzie about their project, with some useful hints about how to set up a similar project (in German): Presentation