Example activities to develop students' intercultural competence by Teacher Academy

Educational courses aboutinterculturalunits divided as follows : Me and the others Clothing The House The food The school The city Market The animals Games and toys Where and when end cards The first tab is centered on the topic " Me and others . " It starts with the outline of the human body , then move on to the facial expressions , the degrees of kinship and family and , finally, the trades .

2016-09-19 12:38:42 UTC

Cornelia Melcu

corneliamelcu — 2016-09-19 12:39:09 UTC

Two years ago we were a part of a project called Bee(Twinner)s. The children ( aged 4 to 7) learnt about bees in an attractive and funny way. They understood the importance of insects in the world and they made connections between different species. One activity was: How do you say bee in your mother tongue and they became familiar with other European languages. Here is the link to the activity:
http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=27054163

Gordon, Malta

2016-09-19 12:43:11 UTC

I was involved in an eTwinning Project entitled Benefit from staying fit. Amongst various activities, this project focused on food traditions in different countries. Students were involved in cooking their own tradition food as well as creating their own videos showing how to cook.

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/626/home

Marcela, Italy

2016-09-19 12:50:12 UTC

I was involved in a PBL about European Union languages and cultures. It was a very interesting project and we collaborate with different schools in the EU ( eTwinning project: skype, digital skills, different EU languages). I used in my class these films : "Sur le chemin de l'école" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-Zt_Wid4U

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_le_chemin_de_l%27%C3%A9cole

and "Not One Less" http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi597557529 They are really very useful to cultivate empathy throughout our students.

Filomena, Italy

prof_montella — 2016-09-19 12:54:57 UTC

I think that it is necessary to organize some activities such as food, uses, religion,

Louise, Malta

chircoplouise — 2016-09-19 12:55:30 UTC

In the school where I used to teach, all the children came from the same small village, so there was little cultural diversity as understood here. However, I still felt it was important for children to learn about others and thus I participated in the Flat Stanley Project. They communicated with children coming from different parts of the world, sharing their everyday life with them.

I also used a lot of stories, to instill a sense respect and tolerance towards those who are different and school plays always tackled the theme of diversity, in different ways.

https://www.flatstanley.com/about?subpage=project

Eugenia

2016-09-19 13:08:34 UTC

Vlad Eugenia Ioana, Romania

2016-09-19 13:08:34 UTC

Students from my country likes activities that involve trips, change of good practice, traditional activities

Marianthi Arvanitidou - Greece

1canislupus22 — 2016-09-19 13:09:13 UTC

As a starting point, it can be helpful to find out about their ideas regarding culture and the basis for these ideas. For example, what experiences have they had encountering other cultures? What challenges did they have? How did they deal with these challenges? What were the results? If they knew then what they know now, would they have dealt with the situation differently? If so, how? Discussing questions such as these, especially involving critical incidents, can help set the stage for starting to develop intercultural competence.I knew it was important to engage students in the discussion and find out the origins of their beliefs about other cultures. For example, are their beliefs based on their own experiences or from what they have heard others say about another culture?

Maria Theodoridou, Greece

theod_eled — 2016-09-19 13:16:06 UTC

I believe that there are uncountable ways to motivate students. I usually use the eTwinning platform, web tools, videos etc. Sometimes i contact NGO's for getting material and always i involve parents in my projects. Their stories can be a treasure.

Barbara Trivelli

dotriv — 2016-09-19 13:25:12 UTC

I've just started my experience on eTwinning, and I think it's a very good way to make my pupils in contact with others. Because of I teach in a kindergarten , pupils usually don't have problems with diversity and prejudice. It is also very easy to motivate them, they are eager to learn

2016-09-19 13:26:41 UTC

hen we start to study a new

Federica, Italy

2016-09-19 13:26:58 UTC

Studying history or literature is difficult fom my students because they don't understand how is possible that the ancients were so different from the moderns. So I try to make them reflect about the diversity. We often discuss about the traditions and the ideas. For example, if we are reading something about Dante and Stil Novo, we can discuss about love and condition of women in each age and in different countries. Till now I havent't done an activity in order to develope intercultural competence, but i often suggest group work and peer to peer activity.

Ana, Croatia

anaznidarec — 2016-09-19 13:28:27 UTC

Thank you all for GREAT examples - like they said in the video - sly is the limit!!

Maria Lisitsina, Armenia

marialisitsina — 2016-09-19 13:35:22 UTC

I think that it is necessary to organize some activities and international/intercultural projects about religion, languages, nations and relationships. We can use for it eTwinning platform.

Iliyana, Bulgaria

2016-09-19 13:36:36 UTC

The activities we can use in class are numerous. I, my classes and the whole school community participated in a Comenius project “European Multiguide” with seven other countries. The products we created together we based on PBL, using technologies and students and their parents’ experience. We created videos with recorded plays on traditions and customs, kids’ songs, brochures about each region of partners, calendar, poster of flora and fauna, tourist guide in eight languages, dvd with legends, brochure and video about children games, and many more. All the topics of the common project work and the ideas of final product were discussed between participants, the teams were created and, of course, all our products were wonderful result of excellent collaborative work of all schools communities.

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:37:57 UTC

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:19 UTC

In pur school we can start

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:19 UTC

In pur school we can start and deve

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:31 UTC

In our school we can start and develop mant activities.

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:32 UTC

In our school we can start and develop many activities.

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:39 UTC

In our school we can start and develop many activities. We

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:41 UTC

In our school we can start and develop many activities. We created

Maria Paola, Italy

2016-09-19 13:38:45 UTC

In our school we can start and develop many activities. We created certain events, like Drama, involving our students and their parents. We usually use multimedia platforms to work with the class because they are one of the most effective, interactive and exciting way to introduce our students to the discovery of the new worlds. Educational tours are highly desired because they provide opportunities for partecipation and inclusion. The teaching of foreign languages is supported and encouraged, like the learning of the italian language. There is a linguistic mediator who help the students who need more help with the italian language.

Uğur TÜRK, TURKEY

ugurogretmen — 2016-09-19 14:05:58 UTC

martaegiov — 2016-09-19 14:09:29 UTC

Angela, Italy
In the school where I teach, we realized several laboratories to create alternative paths of learning for pupils with special educational needs. Among them there were students from Albania, Romania, Morocco, China. They were made craft workshops through the design and production of items allowed to reach curricular teaching objectives, improve socili skills and stimulate collaboration and cultural integration.

Nadya, Bulgaria

nstankova68 — 2016-09-19 14:10:50 UTC

There are Roma students and students with special needs in our school.Therefore, they need more help and encouragement to integrate them without problems in classes.It was important to engage students in the discussion and find out the origins of their beliefs about other culture because their beliefs based on their own experiences or from what they have learnt about other cultures.

Rosa Gaspar / Portugal

2016-09-19 14:19:11 UTC

At my school we had two years ago a Comenius Project . The participants were from different european countries and of course with their special backgrounds and hugely different from ours like Romanians, Greeks and Polish too.
The activities we can use in class are varoius. I, my classes and the whole school community participated in a Comenius project “Similar and differences among europe” with seven other countries. The products we created together we based on PBL, using technologies and students and their parents’ experience. We created videos with recorded plays on traditions and customs, kids’ songs, brochures about each region of partners, calendar, poster of flora and fauna, tourist guide in eight languages, dvd with legends, brochure and video about children games, and many more. All the topics of the common project work and the ideas of final product were discussed between participants, the teams were created and, of course, all our products were wonderful result of excellent collaborative work of
all schools communities.

Benedetta, Italy

bettabulli — 2016-09-19 14:27:06 UTC

In my school we use an integrative style and we usually use some of these activities introduced by Erika and Alicia. Personally, I like creating situations to fight xenophobia. For example I use the film Invictus that join two topics: the rugby (I teach P.E. ) and the racism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlZTzsC8e4g
Here students undestand how sport can join different ethnic groups.

Cristina Popescu Romania

cristina82ro — 2016-09-19 14:30:03 UTC

One of the activities mentioned in one of the videos that I did with one of my classes was a project about CELEBRITIES, it was a project based learning and it proved to me that indeed they learn much more by themselves, researching than the traditional way when the teacher stands in front of the class telling them what to do.
This year we have several eTwinning projects so we are using a lot of modern technoligies and IT programmes in order to accomplish our projects' tasks.

Olga Keramida/Greece

2016-09-19 14:30:13 UTC

Activities about the culture of each country, such as recipes, music, traditional games, tales .... are lovely for kids and we can engage their parents too.

maria66gallo — 2016-09-19 14:34:06 UTC

MARIA GALLO, ITALIA. Have recently become part of the eTwinning team and I have to be honest I really like this system of communication and exchange of information between teachers. I hope to grow professionally on this platform and to bring improvements in my scuola.Le strategies used are based mainly on communication, creativity, the critical sense and self-determination, and mutual cooperationA

Hello from Zoica , Stockholm, Sweden

zorica_salijevic — 2016-09-19 14:37:24 UTC

I found these videos very interesting and incouraging to organize some pojects and events with my students. I am working as a teacher in 3 different feelds: I am teaching basic Swedish to all who just come to Sweden, among them there are a lot of analphabets . Then I am working as teacher /assisten in the kichen and I am helping students to learn not just Swedish or how to cook, also to preserve they own dishes from they own countries and to present them as the part of their haritage. Also, I am working as a teacher/assisten to the students who need help with computers. My work is very intensive but very intresting. I try to build interactive style of learning, creating some situations who are simmilar to all, I am using the feeling how proud they are on their homelands and I incouarige them to try to present them selvs and they countries using the words, music and tipical food! This provide a great joy to my students and it is based on my project "World on the plate" - Internationall Cook Book that I was started when I was in the school of Swedish when I move to Sweden long time ago. I try to resurch abouth the history of the countries my students are coming from and about the tipical food and music. In this feeld of work they all feel safe and proud and they always try to do their best. That's make me so happy and useful in this teaching process.

Teresa Italy

meliter1 — 2016-09-19 14:42:47 UTC

I haven't experience how to deal problems related to cultural differences.

Xanthi, Greece

xalbanaki — 2016-09-19 14:49:57 UTC

In Greece through the New Pilot Curriculum - 2011 (http://digitalschool.minedu.gov.gr/info/newps.php) there was an effort to change the direction of teaching . Curricula are related to all fields of knowledge giving to teachers self-motivation and the possibility to utilize many tools for promoting the learning process. I use project based learning and techniques of drama like: Teacher in Role, Tribunal, Forum Theatre, Still image / Freeze frame, A day in the life, Flashback / Flash forwards, Life line, etc. The students' experiences function as a cornerstone in the learning process. The use of the experiential educational activities develops skills and attitudes to students that would be very difficult to come to the surface with the classical way of teaching, activates the students and increases the understanding and the life span of knowledge

Paola B., Italy

2016-09-19 14:54:41 UTC

Some years ago I was involved in a Comenius European project on languages and cultures. It was interesting and we cooperated with 5 schools in the EU . It motivated pupils to improve their English.

Giovanna, Italy

giovannamerendino — 2016-09-19 15:05:12 UTC

I had a very involving experience during a Comenius project! The country partners were 5 and students had a motivating reason to improve their English.
Now my school is taking part in an Erasmus + project about games giving again other important opportunities to compare different among the 5 country partnerstraditions and culture.

Ida, Italy

DT22 — 2016-09-19 15:05:29 UTC

To better create a collaborative context in class and at school, I usually adopt PBL. Last year at my school we have developed multidisciplinary activities to solve a real problem in communities in which students live, also involving parents.

ARIANNA,ITALY

ariannasinisi85 — 2016-09-19 15:11:04 UTC

I haven't experience how to deal problems related to cultural differences.

Comix as relationship

palmotti — 2016-09-19 15:12:13 UTC

I find that the use of comix are a good idea to deal problema related to cultural differences.

Elena, three age children and "three little pigs"

2016-09-19 15:14:12 UTC

Last years, in my class, I worked with a small group of three age children; two of them were not italians. I read them the story “three little pigs”, then I asked them to perform the story while i read it again. Everyone of them was very happy looking at his friends performing the role of the wolf, or the pig running from a house to another one. After the first performance, we did it other two times, so everyone coud be part of it. Every child enjoied both the performances: being actor and looking at the others. There were not italian or foreign, but only happy children.

Maria, Italy

maria_sorvillo_rosaria — 2016-09-19 15:33:04 UTC

In my school we use different activities to better integrate these children, music workshops, expressive, multimedia and theater.We have collaborated on several projects Etwinning where children partecipated with great motivation and cooperation.

Cinzia, Italy

nicomd — 2016-09-19 15:38:59 UTC

The activities suggested are interesting and I have already used some of them in my classes using the flipped classroom approach as well.
Last year I did an etwinning project with other two foreign countries and it fostered intercultural competences in our students. Students established positive and constructive relationship with the foreign students , they compared cultural backgrounds and the final Skype videoconference was a great emotion for all of us.

Calcedonio Fabio, Ital

2016-09-19 15:42:15 UTC

At the moment I'm not teaching in a multicultural class. Last year I worked with some groups of children having different social backgrounds. In my experience I noticed how important the new technologies can be in dealing with diversity inside a class. Technology, expecially the Internet, can become an ideal meeting point where you can overcome any diversity through an effective communication.

Paola Lo Italy

pa_locicero — 2016-09-19 15:46:43 UTC

I participated in a Comenius project 2012-2014 whose topic was migration the countries involved were Estonia Portugual, Ireland Germany, France Turkey: each country had to deal with migration presenting it in a timeline, doing a lot of activities presentation with maps, interactive maps to show the routes of the migration flows, drama activities to act stories and legends, videos, picture collages and finally an e-book which contained all the works.The students of each country were enthusiastic and eager to know cultural differences, to try new food, to visit the other countries to experiment diversity. In my opinion Comenius or Erasmus are different experiences from the one we live, every day, in classroom as in the former students are motivated to take part in the project, but in class I have to interest my students in the activities they are engaged with and it’s not so easy. For example In the first class I’ve invited my students to exchange e-mail to get to know each other and they have found it less boring than the usually routine of introductions and I have planned topics more concerned with cultural diversity.

Adele, Italy

adele_cammarata — 2016-09-19 15:46:55 UTC

I think that interculture it's first of all an attitude, and you can act interculturally even if you don't have "foreign" pupils in your classroom. So, it doesn't matter from where your pupils come from, you can promote an intercultural attitude in your kids (and in yourself) in every situation.
In particular, I've proposed attivities about finding out and comparing traditions (we have some pupil who is half Sicilian and half from another region, so the differences are internal too!) and folktales.
A basical activity I suggest involve classification criteria (maths and logic) that can be subjective and arbitrary (!): a simply game is making groups following a criteria (all the pupils wearing glasses on the left, the other on the right...): you can see how classification can be totally arbitrary and you are part of a lot of groups at the same time.
I often use examples of real people from all over the world: Malala's story is quite familiar to my kids, as well as Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Sophie Scholl, Danilo Dolci, and people who looked for dialogue and peace in their life.
I try also to propose piece of wisdom from other cultures: we spent a week on "Ubuntu" idea...
Of course, this doesnt' mean we don't have "local" activities: we work hard on our city particular context (Palermo has always been an intercultural crossway!) and how different people made out what is now our culture.

Cinzia

2016-09-19 16:03:28 UTC

Last year, in my class, where there was a student that came from Marocco, I realized a project about the migrations and migrants starting Ulixes (shipwracked) end Enea (refugee). I used the flipped classroom. I invited all my student to research materials, pictures, songs, videos in internet. They realized an interview to the mother of foreign student. So they discovered the analogies end the differences betweeen the old migrations end the new migrations. The activity was successful.

Ana Nojkovska

spasovska_ana — 2016-09-19 16:04:11 UTC

In my school we have students from different ethnic background, so we are actively working on multi cultural approaches. We plan and conduct a vast number of activities such as comparison between languages, game based learning, music activities, blended workshops, workshops with students and parents. We strive to promote equality, respect and empathy.

2016-09-19 16:05:05 UTC

katia from italy
in my classroom i realised a project to integrate a muslim child that speaks italian but your parents have muslim cultur.

Maria Grazia, Italy

demarco_mariagrazia29 — 2016-09-19 16:05:11 UTC

Bergamo is interested in a massive immigrati on process, infatti almost every school has a Welcome Procedure. Ad soon as possibile start basic and intermediari Italian corse (many pupils are analphabets)

Caterina Fantini,Italy

cate_67 — 2016-09-19 16:10:55 UTC

In my class I made projects using traditional songs, recipes and games. I parteciped to e-twinning projects; I invited people that talk about their countries(China, India, Romania...) and students could know better the different cultures. The activity presented by Alicia and Erika are very nice,but maybe too complicated for my students that are 8-9 years old.

Katerina Boukorou, Greece

kabouk — 2016-09-19 16:11:10 UTC

There are many projects that a teacher can do to make pupils contact with each other. Discussion about cultures and students’ beliefs is the first step. In my school students have already been involved with Comenius projects and from this year they are going to participate in an Erasmus+ project about migration. Films, photos, videos, role playing are also very useful for the development of intercultural competences in our classes.

Clara, Portugal

claraabegao — 2016-09-19 16:25:34 UTC

My classes this school year cannot be considered multicultural classes, because although I have some students from different countries, they live in Portugal for several years. But for me, multiculturalism is a way of life.

Somme of the activities described in the video are very good to practice the principles of tolerance and open minded to other cultures. Last school year I participated in 3 eTwinning Projects: Values in Action (in which students reported what they most valued in their lives, families, school, city, …), Influential Teenagers (very similar to Alicia´s project; students had to do research about a list published by Time Magazine), and Happiness is… (students reported about everything that made them happy – music, sports, fashion, love, friendship, …). All these projects were developed using PBL methodology and digital competences. This school year my students will integrate an Erasmus+ KA2 project.

Olga, Czech

2016-09-19 16:34:08 UTC

Was ich tue, um den Schülern interkulturelles Wissen zu vermitteln, sind eTwinning Projekte. Mit Teilnahme an den internationalen Projekten lernen die Schüler Soziales und Empathie kennen.

Mariangela, Italy

2016-09-19 16:44:17 UTC

As Alicia points out a good way to enhance intercultural competence is working in the eTwinning environment. I find eTwinning projects very useful to create a collaborative environment where students are challenged and engaged in their own learning and they have the chance to talk and share with peers from other countries. They learn that we can see things from different viewpoints and perspectives; they learn to work together and share feelings and not only tasks. This is a good way to promote inclusion, not only of foreign students, and to create a positive learning environment. They can talk about themselves and about their dreams as Erika suggests. The PBL approach can be easily incorporated into eTwinning projects with students-driven activities.

Christina, Greece

christinaefm — 2016-09-19 16:52:38 UTC

Examples are the following:

Set clear expectations, via your syllabus and modeling desired behaviors, for class participation and the value of sharing cultural perspectives.
Vary forms of classroom participation, including: working in dyads and small groups before reporting out to large group; using clickers; utilizing responses from course website/discussion board during in-class discussions; having students write individual contracts that allocate points based on categories of skills they want to develop.
Communicate on an individual level, e.g.require students (or give them specific incentives) to sign up for office hours during the first 2-3 weeks; walk around the room to engage with students or student groups on a more individual basis.
Arrange seats in a circle with a talking stick.
Plan time for reflection before soliciting responses from the class.
Raise the status of students with lower language skills.
Use show and tell activities to highlight culture, e.g. incorporate “artifacts” in e-portfolios.
Be intentional in the design of groups or assignments, e.g. assign specific roles; use playing cards to assign students to groups randomly.
Share awareness of personal limitations and worldview.

Natalja, Lithuania

2016-09-19 17:03:02 UTC

For me the best way to integrate intercultural students in class work is the team job. I like integrated project-based learning with other subjects, where everyone can show theirs creativity. And it always interesting, what result can show foreign students.

Francesca, Italy

2016-09-19 17:16:01 UTC

I think that the best way to develop intercultural skills is cooperative learning, working in a small groups and learning by doing. It's important organize teaching laboratory activities. In my school are active different musical and drama labs. With music in particular you can implement inclusive and therefore intercultural strategies.

Pietra Italy

pietra_sellaro — 2016-09-19 17:18:50 UTC

In my class there are students from different cultures. However I think that promoting multiculturalism is very important. Through songs, games, comparisons and dialogues we can promote respect and integration of all

katia - italy

il_cerchiomagico — 2016-09-19 17:27:43 UTC

teaching in primary schools, i use the music, the drawing and the songs to mix and match our own native speaking traditions and the traditions of teo, giorgia and francy. it's funny to have brazilian dances during gym activitieas as much as romanian traditional christmas song

Angelo, Italy

angelo_boezi — 2016-09-19 17:27:56 UTC

My aim is to pass the idea that we are dealing with peers with a different cultural and linguistic background. This is a problem and a difficulty but problems and difficulties are opportunities.
Suppose I have Romanian students - as I have now in my classes.
I can propose a list a books concerning the common cultural heritage. Say Adrian's memories by M. Yourcenaur. I can read in Latin the history of Dacia's romanization. Romanian students are very proficiscent in Latin. We can study the common linguistic basis. E.g.: in Romanian, beautiful is traslated "formous". From Latin formosus. Beautiful in classic Latin is "pulcher" but in special Latin of legions is "formosus". So: where the presence of legions was dominant, passed formosus. As in Spain: hermoso.
We can explore the literary masterpieces of another literature.
We can connect via Internet with relatives or peers of their country of origin and explore vestigia of Roman presence (e.g., the Roman roads system).
Every unit can be disposed and structured so as to encourage the recognition of common roots.
At last, literature is an universal value that knows no social, gender and national bundaries.

Evi Karella - Greece

spevispevi — 2016-09-19 17:32:22 UTC

Last year, although I didn't have students from different countries, I participated in an etwinning project about fairytales from different countries. Each country presented a folk fairytale or fable and other members read it and made activities based on it such as dramatic play, puppetry, board games, online drawing etc. It was a great opportunity for children to get in touch with different ways of thinking

Melina, Greece

2016-09-19 17:46:06 UTC

Teaching in a senior highschool for students with special needs one can eassily understand that diversity enhence the procedure of learning and help students to possess self awarness.

Pieri Stefania

2016-09-19 17:52:05 UTC

teaching in primary school I use often this kind of activities ,from music to drama and cooperative learnig.Last year for the first time we were involved in a fantastic Etwinning project

ROSA MEDEIROS

rosamedeiros — 2016-09-19 18:06:47 UTC

You do not need students with different nationalities to projects on cultural diversity. Before developing tolerance is necessary to awaken curiosity about what is different and understand the causes. Usually in each topic lead students to look at their environment and the net things different from the usual. We can do small projects on music in mé that leads students to be tolerant and curious.
The eTwinning project is fantastic to work diversity .Movies, musics, dance ... are very interesting

Rossella, Italy

RossellaR — 2016-09-19 18:07:08 UTC

The intercultural concerns everyone, without distinction, and to live in multi- ethnic societies forces to confront the changes and challenges that characterize them.
In the classroom you can propose a path of intercultural education based on games and activities that involve everyone, to help children cope with immigration issues and fear of differences , with the main aim of combating prejudices and stereotypes .
We can start with some stories that refer to many nations followed a number of operating routes that delve into the issues relating to the knowledge of the " other" through motor games , linguistic and cooperative , role and the concept of identity , as well as activities to learn geography and to get closer to the traditions of the countries of the world .

Maria Panou/ Kalymnos, Greece

maria_themelis — 2016-09-19 18:23:07 UTC

Because our island is far away of Athens, at the edge of Europe, I wanted to learn my students to respect and recognise human rights to students they have another country, language, colour, religion. So we created and it's now exists too, a european school journal, to make a journey with our journal. 33 teachers of 33 schools and 380 students we've met at twinspace of etwinning net and for three years we've changed opinions, we've disgusted about all subjects teenagers are interested for. Turkish students sent us cards with wishes for "happy christmas"! They explained that they know that we have another religion, but they searched at internet and knew that Greeks have these words for celebrated at winter holidays! It's really great how my greek students made presentes and sent letters and gifts, changed them with other students' gifts. I think inside these projects we can innovate our students' respect to every personality. Here is our project's page at facebook to see our work.

Maria, Greece

mmagga — 2016-09-19 18:23:37 UTC

Since the school I work is located in a village, my students feel quite isolated at times. For this reason, I organised for them a correspondence with penpals in Portugal and Spain. It was really a fantastic experience for them since they had to share information and habits, compare lifestyles, ask quizzes to children of the same age living in different countries. They were amazed to find that the similarities they shared with the children of these countries were far more than the differences.

Anna-Maria Panagiotidou, Greece

ann_apana — 2016-09-19 18:27:40 UTC

Anna-Maria Panagiotidou, Greece

ann_apana — 2016-09-19 18:27:40 UTC

In my Computer programming lessons we are using following kinds of student engagement and learning construction cooperative learning activities:

Group building activities: Folded Value Line(or Opinion Line)activity (a Kagan activity for micro-group creation). Build it activity (for micro-group creation): Students must collaborate to create three shapes in a given time using some magnetic building blocks which they collect blind out of a bag. Pick a marker activity(for cooperative roles assignment within a micro-group):

Roles play activities: You’re the expert – find a solution: Each group becomes a group of experts and after a given role play description they prepare and, while playing interact with the rest of the class.

Game play activities applying Word Rotation:(one speaks & the one to the right of speaker writes his/her idea for next step to the algorithm). Boat, the ship, the grass and the wolf:The well-known problem of a boatman having to take ship, grass and the wolf from one side of the river to the other … Tower of Hanoi: An old universal mathematicalproblem.

Simulation activities: algorithms are simulated from students, often having students physically moving in the classroom, using papers, cartons and markers to write up screen messages.

Two cooperative class structures are often used during lessons:

Aronson’s Jigsaw structure: all expert roles from different micro-groups elaborate work together (expert groups) and turn back to their micro-groups to join their knowledge.

and Placemat structure: used during the compulsory repetition class hours before the individual written examinations

During my PBL lessons we have used lots of student interaction and engagement activities such as: Creation of kolaz in groups of 4 to present “this is me”, “this is the professional area I would like to work in”, “the history of our town”. Role play bearing a label on their bag and without knowing what’s stated on the label. Lining up, getting and keeping secret a character case (old man / refugee / migrant / a banker’s son / …) and stepping front or back after hearing a series of statements, My family’s world map, picture games (cropped first – reflect on a questions, see the whole, discuss)
---
From the activities heard in the video I will certainly liked to apply the role play (make the refugee trip) and the interview to older relatives about their dreams!

Despoina Amarantidou, Greece

damarant — 2016-09-19 18:28:21 UTC

Creation of events and projects that connect students with children from other countries is really experiential. We worked on e-Twinning projects last year and there was collaboration and exchange of ideas. Commenius programs are also challenging but for Primary students exchange is difficult. Songs and short movies work well with young students, as well.

Helen, Ireland

helen_p_english — 2016-09-19 18:37:11 UTC

Like Erika, I too did project-based learning with students around theme of researching the biographies of grandparents. I was amazed at the way the relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren developed and deepened over the course of the project work. There was a real and tangible depth of tenderness and love between them and it helped to give rootedness to the lives of the estranged children. It was very moving actually.
I am at present exploring with students the idea of preconceptions, stereotypes and prejudices.
I also use a lot of photos and articles from the media to explore transnational issues like migration and racism.

Domenico Gaeta, Italy

domenico_gaeta — 2016-09-19 18:51:51 UTC

In class, together with the history and the geography teacher, we decided to dedicate some lesson periods to raising awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world as it was and is a great issue of our present history.

The students learned what a refugee is by reading a definition, watching some videos produced by UNICEF, analyzing some statistics and searching some information about how refugees might feel. Then they were encouraged to put themselves in the place of a refugee and consider how they might feel at leaving behind their homes and belongings. They were, also, asked to imagine that a group of refugee children of their same age were coming to live in their district and therefore plan, prepare, do and present ideas for activities to make them feel welcome.

The students worked in groups and produced a poster presentation.
Intercultural awareness skills:
- observing, identifying and recognising
- comparing
- defending one's own point of view while acknowledging the legitimacy of others
- accepting difference

Helen, Italy

helmar62 — 2016-09-19 18:53:06 UTC

A good way of engaging students with the theme of migration is to get them to do research into their own family history. I usually start with the open question "How many of you have family members who emigrated abroad from Italy?" You would be surprised how many say "none". Then I go on, encouraging them to think more closely. "Really? A cousin, an uncle, a great-aunt?" And in Calabria, on average, 90% of students recall a family member who went to Germany or Belgium or Argentina or Australia or America. Then I ask them to build up a biography of one of these emigrants. What was their life like in Calabria, when did they leave, why, how did they travel, what did they take with them, how did they feel about going? When they don't know the answers we try to make a collective guess. Some really fascinating stories come out. Then we talk about the mostly economic migrants coming across the Mediterranean from Libya nearly every day at the moment. How are they similar or different from the Calabrians who were forced to leave their country? Some class activities connected to this theme can be the creation of family trees, the collection and description of objects (mini museum of migration), audio/visual inverviews with family members of emigrants, photo gallery etc etc

Sónia Rocha, Porto, Portugal

soniacmr18 — 2016-09-19 19:09:57 UTC

I think a good exploration of different cultures can be ideal. Invite family members of a child of a different culture to go to school to share with the rest of the class. Another solution is to create an exchange. We can also get support from the Embassies. Conducting cooking sessions from different cultures. They are just a few ideas.

Eleftheria, Greece

2016-09-19 19:27:42 UTC

All activities which are presented by Erika and Alicia i think that will be usefull for student's cultural deveristy. For example, i find the activity of searching information about pupils grands or parents like their experiences of their mother country so interesting and i beared in my mind a similar activity. Last year, my student's have to work in pairs and make a project with collective information of the most famous poets of their mother country. Then they have to compare their final material with their classmates work and try to find similars and differents. It was so onteresting that pupils ask to do more and more similar works because, as they mentioned, they like to learn about others cultural and sivilizations!

Konstantinos, Greece

lerkos0 — 2016-09-19 19:30:51 UTC

There can be found numerous activities, exercises, lesson plans, projects etc. that can promote intercultural competence of students in multicultural societies. These presented here are very important. I think that e twinning projects are at the core of intercultural education.

Sonia, Spain

2016-09-19 19:36:23 UTC

When working etwinning projects my students to a blog of the project, each student make their own one. They are developing the ITC competence and computering. They are also developing the communicative competence in the foreign language. At the end of each session of the project, each student comment to the rest of the group the results of the task worked. and also to the students in the correspondent country

Kondylo Glarou/Greece

seagullitsa — 2016-09-19 19:49:45 UTC

My students can present their country; share a special custom, a special dish, some common phrases practicing foreign languages.

Angelamaria Galderisi, Italy

2016-09-19 19:52:19 UTC

What I like of Erika’s examples activities is the suggestion to involve students’ parents and relatives when developing a topic. I really appreciate Alicia’s project-based learning approach.
I think that innovative pedagogies like project-based learning could help developing students’ intercultural competence. A PBL approach can personalize learning of students and make learning relevant by involving the communiti as well as parents and relatives. In my context, one of the most challenging components of effective PBL will be structured collaboration among students. Since students are familiar with and enjoy using a variety of tech tools (Smartphone, tablets, notebooks), they will be a perfect fit with PBL. By the means of technology, teachers and students can not only find resources and information about muticulturalism, and create products like books or blogs, but also collaborate more effectively, and eventually connect with other classes and contexts in which multicuralismi is relevant and present. The most used collaboration tools are Google Apps For Education and Google Drive. Moreover we make use of a digital class (electronic format) register, which offers the opportunity to share multicultural files and document helping developing intercultural competence of students.

Irene Confa-Italy

confalone — 2016-09-19 20:09:09 UTC

I love creating a collaborative context in my class and at school, I usually adopt PBL. In my school we have developed multidisciplinary activities to solve a real problem in communities in which students live, involving parents. We promote international projects ang Erasmus,and we try to abolish any kind of difference among students .

Daniela Stefania Pagano - Italy

2016-09-19 20:11:37 UTC

In class I often use cooperative learning while conducting tasks, or when I assign a project to be completed at home. Other times I use tutoring to help those who have most more difficulty with specific activities. Any activity tasks are assigned to an individual person, when the common work is completed each pupil expresses the contribution he has made.

Edit, Hungary

tothedit0610 — 2016-09-19 20:21:31 UTC

I haven't done eTwinning projects or project-based learning so far. This year I completed the project-based learning online course via Teacher Academy and I am planning to try it out with at least one of my groups. I am also planning to take part in eTwinning projects in the future. Now my colleagues and me have been participating in an Erasmus + project for 2 years. I can use all the activities mentioned in the video during my English lessons, and project-based learning on my Biology lessons.

Nickie Liaropoulou, Greece

liaropoulou — 2016-09-19 20:26:11 UTC

I would like to involve my pupils in an eTwinning project and I also intend to adopt project-based learning in at least one of my classes. Involving their family will also make pupils feel important and proud of their origins and this is something I would like to cultivate, too

Lino Milita - Italy

lino_milita — 2016-09-19 20:34:24 UTC

The activities listed in the video are all shared and apply. In addition, I would add that students of all ages have common experiences that come back from memory. What are the songs they sang to help sleep? What were your favorite fairy-tale? What games early childhood memories? Look for them; play them. Compare your games with those of others. Played together.

Marzia, Italy

marziast — 2016-09-19 20:39:20 UTC

I think project-based or problem-based learning are the best ways to stimulate pupils' creativeness, curiosity and collaboration. I usually use video-recording to make my students use the language they are learning to talk about certain topics, for example, in their video they may explain and show recepes from their countries, illustrate monuments, talk about historical people...In this case, the use of technologies (mobile, Youtube, blogs etc) are important), but I also enable them create games and quizzes to play in the class with what they have learnt..and they just need a piece of paper, a pen and their creativeness and competences.

Kasia, Poland

katerinaki62 — 2016-09-19 20:56:22 UTC

I am the PBL teacher at school and I have got regular hours granted to me to teach youngsters how to plan-conduct-present the project. We do tens of such activities: play games (Meinkraft- they had to build the object on nine devices together but they failed after not having predicted the problem with wi fi....Pokemon Go applied as a initial activity to historical places research, geographical pokestops placing and applying to the company to make it official...etc), shoot films, record videoclips internationally, record books in all languages for the blind, cook dishes from all over the world, organize students exchanges, and many many others.What is the main principle is to make them want you in their world, trust them, and let them blossom.

Sometimes communication is difficult - then- use technology - it helps

Apostolia Maladaki

amalad73 — 2016-09-19 20:58:44 UTC

All the presented activities are really useful in order to promote diversity in classroom. In my school you also use etwining projects where students from different countries can participate, projects related to refuges- most of the students in my class have grandfathers who came in Greece as refuges so in the families exist stories about this fact. we made an exhibition at school with photos of this period and students brought photos of their grandfathers

Fulvia Italy

leardini — 2016-09-19 21:09:02 UTC

I often organize writing dram, theater laboratory, roles play activities and language games such as creative writing. I think that also CLIL activities are good occasions to work all together in a new different language. I appreciate all the presented activities and I hope I will be able to do some of them in my class.

Ester, Italy

2016-09-19 21:11:16 UTC

We have had eTwinning and Comenius/Erasmus+ projects which involved the creation, exchange and comparison of materials from different countries involved. Students had to discover the similiraties and differences of words, languages, environments, games, sports, schools, food, way of living and so on. We also hosted foreign teachers, a linguistic Assistant from Turkey, an Aiesec volunteer from Iran who presented their language and culture.
I think the ideas presented in the video can easily be adapted in out context.

Maria Antonietta, Italy

2016-09-19 21:12:21 UTC

Very interesting and useful learning activities that I partially use in my Primary classes! Thanks to Erika and Alice. Thanks to Louise from Malta too for sharing the Flat Stanley Project. Making connections is essential in any context. Comunicating each other is the best way to avoid rising barriers. Be open minded!

Maria V, Greece

mbasilopoulou — 2016-09-19 21:15:15 UTC

I could either involve my students in an eTwinning project, something I have already done many times with multiple benefits for both them and me or engage them in project work following the steps of PBL approach. One activity could be to give them a topic of their interest, "Friendship" for instance and working in groups they will have to decide what they would like to present about it. Songs, poems, drawings, thoughts written down, parents' contribution too, movies that relate to the topic ,posters could be some helpful suggestions. Students will reflect on their learning steps and assess each others work throughout the project. The final product could be a blog shared within the school community.

I often ask all the students to interview their friends or relatives on particular topics. From the answer of all students we start a discussion. we sometimes create padlets or ppt presentations expressing personal backgrounds talking about routines, foodd, sport and other topics connected to their interests

loredanabatelli — 2016-09-19 21:35:32 UTC

maria cristina baleani

2016-09-19 21:55:43 UTC

I think that all cooperative learning activities, peer-to-peer education, clil lessons, etwinning and working together to erasmusplus KA2 Projects are the best experience I did with my students....they become closer frineds, more than only class mates...they can work and at the same time, help each other, talk, meet, exchange, smile....know better

Giulio, Italy

giulio_picciolini1 — 2016-09-20 04:22:29 UTC

Certainly the PBL method enhances every search for intercultural relations because it allows every student to get the same level of others to have something to say. And this applies to everyone, not only for foreign students. My school is a technical institute and participate in Erasmus + with a project on technologies. It 's a great opportunity for them, but wecan do much every day in class. In my lessons of Italian and History I try to present each topic as a problem, to which you can make many solutions, not just one. Usually the phase of searching for information - which systematically use BYOD - is one in which you create more interaction and has an important influence to the success of the subsequent phases.

Marilena, Greece

becsa1 — 2016-09-20 04:27:32 UTC

I have used etwinning and collaborative projects in my classes and I completely agree with the comment that students learn much more by researching themselves, than hearing about a topic from the teacher, providing there is the necessary time, resources and students’ attitude/interest, so it can work that way.

Moula Evangelia, Grrece

2016-09-20 04:40:02 UTC

I find the activity of presenting different personalities from other countries is quite exciting because students usually have a vague or a completely no idea at all about other countries. Being attached to their own national environment they ignore life in other places, apart from the commercial, stars (actors, singers). So its enlightening to find out that there is intellectual life in other places too.

Evaggelia,Greece

evaggeliasariggoli — 2016-09-20 05:25:18 UTC

EXTREMELY interesting activities by Alicia and Erika!!!!!! I found most applicable for my class ,the ones about searching information on the Net,making collage,scrapbooks and presenting them to the whole class.

Rosaria, Italy

2016-09-20 05:36:59 UTC

An activity that in my opinion could be extremely motivating for the students and highly meaningful for the development of intercultural competences could be collaborative writing: that coul be developed as a cross-curricular activity and also involve students and teachers from different nationalities: as well as the production of the document by students from different countries, the pre-draft discussions and arguments as well as post-draft analyses and debates could have a valuable intercultural impact.

Marco, Italy

pianotti_marco — 2016-09-20 06:37:26 UTC

Clelia, from Italy

dccclasses — 2016-09-20 06:47:18 UTC

Last year my colleague worked on an e-twinning project. It was excellent and I realized I could do it by myself. For this reason I logged in e-twinning live to have contacts with teachers from other countries and work with them on some simple activities like sending Christmas postcards, sharing materials about own countries.In this way pupils are emotionally involved in the interaction with foreigners.

Giulia Italy

2016-09-20 07:13:48 UTC

Last year I logged in e-twinning so I could follow some very interesting courses. This year, for the first time, I have an e-twinning project with one of my classes. I think it may be a very interesting experience

Manuela, Italy

2016-09-20 07:23:21 UTC

All examples of activities showed by Erika and Alicia are really interesting and I will try to get the best out of this presentation to apply them in a concrete way to my everyday school experience. I think that the use of modern technologies (PC, tablets, mobiles) is extremely fruitful because students feel to be more at ease with these devices and on top of that we educate to use them in a more positive way. I have no direct experience as teacher with eTwinning or exchanges with Erasmus+, but as former student I had experience about that and I could state that they have been the best and the most enriching experience of my

Donka, Bulgaria

dkirovska — 2016-09-20 07:25:28 UTC

I used work with students on many international projects - Comenius, Youth in Action, Erasmus. Also emphasize the role-playing games for acceptance of diversity, developing tolerance and empathy. The children who can not speak or write in Bulgarian language, because it is not their mother tongue, provide additional classes for literacy and psychological support.

Ilaria, Italy

2016-09-20 07:29:27 UTC

In my school I often use innovative pedagogies like cooperative learning,project-based, peer tutoring or problem-based learning about the development of intercultural competences in my class. This year we’re working on an eTwinning project.

Guner, Turkey

gunerozen — 2016-09-20 07:35:22 UTC

We can organize a lot of activities about cultural identity, rights, migration, prejudices, being open-minded etc. I have attached a photopgraph of the activity we made last year. We asked ourselves "Who am I? How much do I know about rights?"Then, we produced some posters and talked on the ideas which inspired us.

Joserra, Spain

joserraj — 2016-09-20 08:07:02 UTC

In our school we like working with projects and it is 5 years since we started with eTwinning. This way of working gives students the chance to know and learn about other cultures

Colomba, Italy

2016-09-20 08:11:53 UTC

In my school we use innovative pedagogies like cooperative learning and peer tutoring about the development of intercultural competences. I'd like to participate to eTwinning

Ioanna/Greece

2016-09-20 08:40:35 UTC

Some learning activities are: projects in various subjects, theater, role playing, collaborative presentations of countries of origin, collaborative writing tales, activities outdoors, games, trips…

Miguel Canora, Spain

orientacion_iespalomares — 2016-09-20 08:58:28 UTC

There are two kinds of foreign students in my school -a secondary school. Migrant students who use to arrive with their families or some relatives -South America, mainly-, and foreign students from all over the world involved in international Exchange programmes. Despite the fact that our South American students have Spanish as mother tongue, the use to need more time to integrate in our social environment. On the other hand the students not Spanish-speakers, who come here without their families, use to pass a stressing period of time but the use to success in their social integration. I think this would be a good question to discuss.

Anne Fischer, Berlin

2016-09-20 09:25:42 UTC

In my 5th grade class, we had 'pen pals' with a 6th grade class from Geneva, Switzerland. It was a great way for the students to not only practice writing in English but it was great for them to share about their culture (and themselves) and learn about others and their cultures. While working in another school, my students did a PBL project on education in Burkina Faso. It was fascinating for them to learn about the different cultures and country but it was also eye opening for them to learn about schooling around the world. In other classes, we have done projects on different countries. In Dubai, we did a lot of projects on the culture, religion and celebrations in the UAE.

Federica, Italy

f_capuzzo — 2016-09-20 09:40:58 UTC

I haven't had so far the opportunities to work actively on intercultural topics with media resources. All exchanges came by chance and through conversations. I would like to use some multimedia platforms, such as kahoot but so far I couldn't enjoy a classroom with LIM (Interactive whiteboard) and usually in school the use of mobile phones is forbidden. I had once the occasion to connect via Skype to show cultural differences and different English accents. Last year I worked on a project of trust development through combination of English language and physical activities.

Elena FP, Italy

2016-09-20 10:11:33 UTC

We have been participating in Comenius (now Erasmus+) projects since 2011 and they have proved very effective in engaging and motivating students from all backgrounds in multicultural projects. One was about the European Union's values, another about saving the Environment and now, about sport as an educational tool.
I have also used eTwinning, engaging my pupils in activities (even a Skype session) with peers from foreign countries. With some colleagues, we are now considering introducing PBL in some classes. As Alicia says in the video, the sky's the limit!

Ilaria, Italy

ladyrandal — 2016-09-20 11:03:35 UTC

Unfortunately, I'va carried out only a few activities on intercultural topics so far. We had conversations, cooking time and some activities using Interactive whiteboard, showing videos and games. I'm planning to use a more project-based approach this year, using much more technology that I used to do. I really like the idea of finding out places with Google Earth: such a great journey! I really love (and would like to do) the project Erika talked about. A lot of interesting stories can be told from our students' migrant relatives and it could be funny to put them together in a booklet or a blog. Relatives could speak in their mother languages and be translated by bilingual students!

Nikos Greece

2016-09-20 11:57:59 UTC

The Participation of the school in eTwining and Erasmus+ projects is of course a Tool to build intercultural competences. But it not always applicable to any class .Students participation is limited. As a teacher of a vocational school I confront some problems because our Curriculum which is oriented to professional skills and competences.

Chiara CArbonari, Italy

chiara_carbonari — 2016-09-20 12:42:49 UTC

I find very interesting what Alicia said for increasing intercultural competence. In particular, I think that problem-based learning is very useful in heterogeneous classes because students have to work together to get a common target

Annalisa- Italy

isaese77 — 2016-09-20 12:54:19 UTC

Last year we planned some projects to value cultural diversity with open discussions in class, realizing works to encourage students to help each other and to be more open-minded, involving the community with little dramas and concerts in Christmas and at the end of the scholastic year.

Rosy, Italy

rositone73 — 2016-09-20 13:21:05 UTC

I think that this video is very interesting because it gives excellent ideas.
Students, as a matter of fact , learn more from their resourches then by what teachers say.
They have to work togheter on a common project , so they could learn and grow as future citizens and people ., P upils may be led to realize a common project, such as a teat h e r or a Blog .

M.Elena

andrelena — 2016-09-20 13:39:28 UTC

Collaborative and project based Learning are good ways to develop collaboration among students.

antonio p italy

2016-09-20 13:51:04 UTC

I agree that approaching foreign languages students really needs new pedagogical theory application in particular project based activities. The activity with far relatives is very interesting may be some common dreams will appear so creating a common base among students all over the world. This kind of activity involves both individual activity and collaborative approach so developing transversal competences.

Construct knowledge seems to be the core of every successful learning process. ��J-J�

Sabrina Vespier, Italy

sabrina_vespier — 2016-09-20 13:53:56 UTC

I would like to share with you a beautiful experience that i lived with my students, because i think it is a good example of activity to develop students' intercultural competence. Last year i organized the project "aggiungi un posto a tavola". It means "add a chair at the table" because eating together is the best place where you are not different from the others and where you can communicate about everything! So my students have put on the table what they have cooked with their parents . Then we talked about the recipes and curiosity about the name of some typical food

Patrizia, Italy

2016-09-20 14:13:13 UTC

Silvia, Italy. I think i could use some of the activities suggested by Alicia as a follow up to a culture lesson on immigration at the beginning of the 19th century. One of my favourite topics when I teach culture is actually Ellis Island and Euopean immigration to the USA. I think this is useful to have Italian students reflect on the fact that just a century ago many people left our country looking for a better life. It could also be a way to address the problem of immigration not too directly with foreign students whose families have recently left their countries and whose wounds may be still fresh. The problem could also be linked to the present "brain drain" issue and the sad fact that many young people with high levels of education still have to leave Italy to find a proper job. After a historical introduction students could be asked to research famous immigrants such as Annie More, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Rudolph Valentino ... and present their stories to the class with an online tool such as Glogster. They could then create questions to check their classmates comprehension of their presentation. The questions could finally be put together in a kahoot quiz for general revision of the presentations.

2016-09-20 14:36:31 UTC

Peggy

pegstefan — 2016-09-20 14:39:24 UTC

Peggy Stefanidou Greece

pegstefan — 2016-09-20 14:39:25 UTC

I try to involve my students in Erasmus + or E-twinning projects in order to create in order to create bridges between cultures, religions, nations , social backgrounds...
I always teach them about the importance of the human rights and the respect and tolerance of every kind of diversity

Olga, Finland

2016-09-20 14:47:36 UTC

We're going to celebrate a European Day of Languages next Monday that's why we're preparing now various activities. For e.g. students from other countries make posters where they present their native country in their own way. Some of the students have chosen to teach others greetings in their own language, others make presentation about national food or national animals of the motherland. With my German students we're preparing a poster where some certain things like numbers, months, days of the week (students choose the topic by themselves) are presented at the same time in English, German and Swedish as well as in other languages. The idea is to show similarities and differences between languages.

Anna Maria, Italy

annamariapani — 2016-09-20 15:07:32 UTC

I think that the examples in the video are useful and they can work in my class. But I think also that they will work only if I first manage to overcome language difficulties of foreign students in Italian language and Italian students in foreign language. In fact, it isn't easy to use tools as Skipe to talk with anyone all over in the world if you don't speak its language

Simona. Italy

2016-09-20 15:12:30 UTC

Gabriella, Italy

2016-09-20 15:13:13 UTC

In the last year, we showed our classroom videos of African students in Etiopia. I think that we should use a lot Internet because there are many resources on the web that can be useful and students will learn that computers can be used well, to discover and learn also about other cultures.
I found interesting the idea of Skype conversations, because it's also an opportunity to use the English language.
I think it would be also useful, in a multicultural class, to have a cooperative learning approach and to train students to get in touch with everyone and find together common ways of thinking.

Marilia, Portugal

g_marilia_santos — 2016-09-20 15:14:05 UTC

Although my school is not a multicultural one I could adapt and pply some of the activities presented on the video.
I take advantage of the syllabus and tackle issues related to Multiculturalism.

Francesca, Italy

pacenca — 2016-09-20 15:26:26 UTC

In my class we work with traditional dishes tipical of the different countries. We describe traditions and than we organized a cooking project to taste a straordinary international brunch

Mary, Italy

mrformichelli — 2016-09-20 15:32:10 UTC

All the activities mentioned in the video are very interesting and can be applied to my classes. I have suggested my students to talk about their most important festivity, how they celebrate it and how it was celebrated in the past, for example by their parents when they were the same age as them and by their grandparents. Then each student had to tell the class and finally find differences and/or similarities.

Rosalinda Di Mauro. Italy

rosalindadimauro — 2016-09-20 15:36:26 UTC

Three projects were realized in my school last year. A video, titled Nur’s story. The video told about a Syrian girl who escapes from her Country because the war. The students were actively involved, not only for playing the roles but, most of all, for trying to understand the problems of Syria, doing researches on Syrian habits, religion, food and asking the History teacher the causes of the war.
The other project was an event realized at the end of the school year by my students of Spanish language lab “the Spanish food day”. They cooked the most popular traditional Spanish dishes, (with the help of their mothers), and invited all the school students to taste the dishes. Of course, behind this event, there was a valuable research work of Spanish traditions.
The last project (but not the least) was a stage show, “lo Schiaccianoci” (the Nutcracker). The project’s aim was to involve students with disabilities and not to sing and play together in order to foster integration and to implement an inclusive teaching methodology. The stage was a challenging and rewarding setting, an effective means of collaboration and socialization that allowed the respect for others and their identity, the sharing of areas and objects. An awesome experience!

Katerina Regouza, Greece

2016-09-20 16:07:53 UTC

Alicia is absolutely right that students learn much better by researching information and knowledge on their own. In Greek State schools, however, mobile electronic devices are not allowed in class, so research work needs to be done in a computer lab; in that case, I have noticed throughout several projects that students have difficulty in evaluating their sources. I very much agree with Peggy Stefanidou and what she writes on her post. The e-Twinning platform gives schools all over Europe and beyond a great opportunity to get to know each other and build intercultural relationships. Last year we were involved on a project coordinated by a French secondary school on healthy eating with emphasis on the value of breakfast in a student's life.

Silvia, Italia

2016-09-20 16:08:30 UTC

I would apply the activity presented by Alicia, that is researching the stories of their national heroes on mobile devices. For example, children could realize a presentation about the most famous athletes of their country, a sort of CLIL project involving also the gym teacher.

Kristina Kaučić, Croatia

2016-09-20 16:14:35 UTC

Different, yet the same would be the title of my PBL. Students work in groups in order to find out what are the differences and what is the same

Dimitra Arampatzi, Belgium

darabazi — 2016-09-20 16:29:38 UTC

All the examples mentioned are very important and I think they some can be used for younger pupils too, with a very careful adaptation to their needs and abilities.
In my class, I try to participate both in e-twinning projects as well as common projects, which are organized each year in our school, with the participation of all the different linguistic sections.
For example, I could mention a very nice project which was realized during the last school year. We chose one fable from the culture of each linguistic section, which we worked in class with our pupils in many ways and with different means (e.g. puppet theatre, handicrafts, dramatization e.t.c.).
Each class created a big poster presenting the fable using drawings, painting, collage (group work). The posters were exhibited at a special area in the school, so as everyone could visit and see them.
Additionally, a book was created by each class with text and drawings, which was given to the other classes in order to read and learn the fable.
In this way pupils had the chance to learn fables that derive from different cultural environments, compare to their own culture, find similarities and differences, express preferences, recognize the value of literature as a universal value.

Carla,Ital

carlabisogni241 — 2016-09-20 16:34:17 UTC

My students made some eTwinning projects ( another will be starting next days) with foreign students so we applied some of the activities presented by Alicia and Erika to learn about other people's cultures and build relationships at the same time. We used videos some useful application to share our work for example: padlet, glogster, prezi .... .

Triantafyllia Syvaka, greece

sivakatr — 2016-09-20 16:35:48 UTC

Very interesting activities proposed by Erika and Alicia. I thing students can learn easily collaborating and communicating in eTwinning projects.

Maria, Italia

mariagranatiero — 2016-09-20 17:03:22 UTC

Very interesting.
usually I organize creative games that become true educational activities. I observe everything from active behavior to introverted guy. check and I rotate the duties of responsibility and commitment to the less interested in building creative activities.

Elisabetta , Italy

2016-09-20 17:17:26 UTC

I erad the ideas presented in the padlet and what I liked most are : Olga's ; Rosalinda's and Peggy's.
As Olga I celebrate the European Day of Languages making quite the same activities. I liked Rosalinda's research work and video on Nur's story and I do just like Peggy (Greece) strongly believe in e3Twinning and Erasmus+ as a chance to meet - even virtualy- new mates.

CARMEN italy

prof_ssa_desimone — 2016-09-20 17:19:47 UTC

i think it' s interesting to adapt the activities suggested in the video to my own contest because i agree

Alicia 's opinion :it's better to do than only to listen to the teacher who is explaing. It's a good idea to do an interview to parents or grandparents to know their youth in their country ; it's interesting to research photos from all over the world ,.To connect classes from all over the world by Internet is a wonderful idea. I think should be import an to reflect on all informations and to condivide with a blog all that they have discovered about their countries

Ornella LASAPONARA , Italia

veraornellasap — 2016-09-20 17:20:15 UTC

Inclusive musical activity for diversity could be the search for sounds or ethnic musical scales . Each student bring to class one or more ethnic instruments of the country of origin . The learning unit will lead the students to a common classification highlighting the common aspects of the instruments attributable to common instrumental families : Wind , String , ...

Antonietta, Italy

2016-09-20 17:35:14 UTC

Project-based or problem-based learning are suitable to the development of intercultural competences as they produce personalised and collaborative learning. Also technologies are very useful and appropriate in this kind of approach as they promote curiosity and a funny environment.

Athina, Greece

aginoudi — 2016-09-20 18:08:52 UTC

All the activities are very interesting and they can easily be applied in the classroom. I participate with my pupils in eTwinning projects which help students to develop intercultural competence. I work also with digital maps, which are useful for students to understand the ways of migration and the problems that people face in their countries.

Irini, Greece

pougounia — 2016-09-20 18:54:39 UTC

The use of technologies plus a project-based or problem-based learning can prove useful in such cases.

Caterina Musmeci, Italy

kmusmeci — 2016-09-20 18:57:35 UTC

Few years ago I taught in class (age 12/13 years) with a strong presence of foreign students, some of second generation some recently arrived in Italy: Nigeria, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Cina, Romania, Polonia. To develop student's intercultural competence we worked on a universal musical genre: the lullaby. It was an interesting experience that involved parents also. Music, Rhythms and different words but the same bonding mother and son.

Francesca, Italy

francesca_lombardi1973 — 2016-09-20 19:02:20 UTC

I think all these activities are very interesting. Thanks for sharing them. I personally used some useful digital tools with my students such as Stoodle, Scratch, PowToon and Glooster.

Daniela, Italy

gea68_dp — 2016-09-20 19:30:18 UTC

I teach italian law. When I speak of the State organization I ask my students the differences between our countries. If I manage with young students and with classes newly formed, I try to encourage mutual understanding asking to carry out group work and I create groups with member belonging to differents countries. Sometimes, if I manage with older students, I prepare legal cases to solve and I ask them to solve in group. When they are in armony, they can explain to the class their solution.

Angela P.,Italy

2016-09-20 19:32:39 UTC

The activities that most manage to educate to respect for diversity are undoubtedly those which require collaboration as in the case of projects because they make it possible to enhance each student and to enrich each other for their differences.

Sabrina, Italy

gsabibou — 2016-09-20 19:35:37 UTC

What I liked the most is the idea about grandparents' stories. That kind of work investigates the children's past, going through their present and makes hypothesis and wishes about their future. I think that could be a valid base to find interesting differences between the students and things in common. I think I will use this idea.

Cristina Gila,Romania

2016-09-20 19:43:40 UTC

I teach History. I liked ideea to organise Skype meeting with students from different countries and develop an eTwinning project about diversity.
I was the coordinator of one project named Flying with different feathers 2013-2014.
http://flyingwithdifferentfeathers.tumblr.com/post/63729593199/project-description
We can face against the prejudices in our society by active recognizing individual diversity around us. Discovering diversity is based on our own experience. If we teach our students to perceive diversity around them correctly, we can help them to ask the questions about the differences around them correctly too. Students are going to create questionnaire on the theme of diversity to open discussion within classmates, within classes in the school and in the families and use their outputs to public relations of the theme on the public. Related activities described below are going to support the whole project.

Our students created products in the long term in education process: Play role, games, questionnaire, quiz, posters, brochures, Social theatre, miming recording on DVD, story book with poems and multilingual texts, blog, exhibition, done by artists and pupils (collage, paintings, photographs).

The students between 13-14 years old participated in the project.

I used some tools with my students like: Padlet, Glogster, Prezi, AnswerGarden in eTwinning projects.

Luisa, Italy

2016-09-20 19:59:21 UTC

Teaching English as a foreign language, I think all the suggested activities could be applied in my classroom. I have a lot of experience with (and recommend) interacting with classrooms in other countries by means of letters, e-mail, Skyping, etc. The kids are always very curious to hear from their partners abroad, and they very soon realise that, even though they live in two very different countries, they have a lot in common. I'm in a new school this year and I'm setting up new contacts this year using ETwinning. I hope I'll be able to exploit its full potential. I've also tried (and, again, recommend) web-quests. As Alicia suggested, using digital technology for some problem-solving purpose is a great way to personalise learning emphasising the value of curiosity and research (including what's different from what I know) without the pressure of reaching a standard competence level. These are just two examples but all the ones suggested were very good.

marfu7 — 2016-09-20 20:52:08 UTC

Marcella, Italy
This is an example o f the favourite activities i do in order to create a relaxing environment and developing students intercultural competences.

Maria Grazia, Italy

giambigia — 2016-09-20 21:23:53 UTC

The activities that in my opinion could be extremely motivating are cooperative learning activities, peer to peer and role play.I often ask all the students to search information on the Web, make collage, scrapbooks, billboards, power points, songs, poems, drawingsand present them to the whole class.

Niculina, Romania

2016-09-21 05:51:59 UTC

I teach Language and literature and I am eTwinner; with my class, we ve worked to several eTwinning projects about multiculturality, stereotypes, cultural diversity only to develop intercultural competences to students.

Patrícia, Portugal

2016-09-21 07:08:52 UTC

As I teach English and as I am an eTwinner, most of the activities I choose are related to developing intercultural and linguistic competences. We do lots of research, we contact students and teachers from other countries, we also create materials about our own country that we share with our colleagues and friends from other schools. We frequently talk about the importance of respecting differences and searching information before forming an opinion.

Miriam,Italy

aleemattia — 2016-09-21 09:47:20 UTC

I teach music and art, materials that offer the ability to create workshop or follow projects through both traditional system with new technologies. Music and disegn are a bridge between children of different cultures.

Antonio, Italy

ronzoni_scuola — 2016-09-21 12:31:18 UTC

I think in the subject I teach the best way to engage children and motivate them both propose to do something manually or with the use of ICT . I noticed that in the practical group work each manages to carve out an active role , and even the guys with language difficulties understanding what must be done and you imepgnano within the group . I also propose that the boys of the challenges is crucial action to aggregate them and make them overcome their differences because they are united towards a common goal

Valeria Orazi, Italy

marito31813 — 2016-09-21 13:03:20 UTC

I'm a kindergarten teacher so I cannot use new tecnologies like skype or internet with my pupils but I can do many practical activities to develop intercultural competence. For example we do role playing, drama, we read stories from other countries, we organize intercultural party with music, food and typical dresses.
Sometimes we invite parents to tell children about their customs and traditions.

Lina Mosca Italy

didinomosca63 — 2016-09-21 13:11:50 UTC

In my class we often have connection with France and the students work about a subject, it is very interesting

Valentina, Italy

valentinabertazzoli77 — 2016-09-21 13:21:02 UTC

I think all the methods are very interesting. For me it is useful the collaboration: when the children have to do something together, they have to speack, to match, to accept the other positions. I like also the role plays, like drama laboratories.

Rossella Francesconi, Italy

francesconi_ros — 2016-09-21 13:44:16 UTC

Rossella Francesconi, Italy

francesconi_ros — 2016-09-21 13:44:19 UTC

Rossella Francesconi, Italy

francesconi_ros — 2016-09-21 13:44:20 UTC

I work every year in etwinning projects with european class and teacher. It's a
beautiful experience because we change our activity with other students and we can discuss about different traditions.

Vasiliki Psaridou/Greece

psaridou — 2016-09-21 13:51:03 UTC

I worked in E-twinning for the first time the previous school year. I took a program within Greece in order my students to learn to speak better greek since they are Minority in Greece. They really liked the program but what they enjoyed the most was the interview they had to take from a local farmer about Tobacco plants. Tobacco is the local cultivation and they had to present it to the other school in a town far away from ours. They were separated into groups, prepared the questions and took the interview that was finally sent to the other school via Utube.

Ispir Iuliana-Florentina, Romania

ispiriuliana — 2016-09-21 14:34:19 UTC

Unfortunately, our activity in the primary 10 years ago, I had a clear view of innovation
activities. Today, in kindergarten, things are easier, and thus can organize innovative activities, especially project-based.

Evangelia Triantafyllou, Greece

evatria — 2016-09-21 14:40:50 UTC

For the past two years I've been engaging my students in several types of projects., mainly eTwinning and Teachers4Europe projects. During the eTwinning projects my students were given the opportunity to skype and communicate in a variety of ways with students from other European countries on a range of different topics. I remember an instance they especially enjoyed during a skype meeting was when they held - in turn - a quiz for their countries, which their partners had to answer. They usually work in groups for the accomplishment of their projects and I always try to encourage them to use their creativity (e.g. they do collages or collect images).

Gianluca, Italy

Gianluca_Marano — 2016-09-21 14:41:06 UTC

tackk: https://tackk.com/edit/11996693
Instagram: Gianliukk
to start I formed of pairs of students and each of them had to give himself a name that was to represent a musical genre. after which turns the two students had to write (one with black pen, and the other with red pen) musical instruments that had played, touched and seen in the course of their years.

Maria Grazia, Italy

mgstefanelli — 2016-09-21 15:22:10 UTC

The activities and the ideas presented by Alicia and Erika are really interesting. My students made an e-twinning project with students from Hungary and Bulgaria using its platform. It was a great chance to know each other and to learn about the different cultures.

Maria M., Italy

2016-09-21 15:45:12 UTC

I like Erika’s activity and I can apply it to my subjects and my students.

Some of my students want to be connected with their relatives and their original countries; some other students haven’t a happy relationship with their backgrounds because they think they can’t live anymore in their original countries and they feel themselves different from classmates. These students are looking for their identity.

I think that Erika’s activity can activate reflection about themselves and an interesting discussion with classmates.

Dimitrios Zisimopoulos, Greece,

dzisimopp2 — 2016-09-21 15:52:08 UTC

The activities presented from Alicia and Erika are very useful because they refer to basic principles as already mentioned: engangement, collaboration, get in others' shoes are fundamental to create a community and accept the differences. For example, at the closing day last June we had a fest where the students had to present greek dances but Greek students had to learn and present with their collegues albanian as well. Mothers had prepared foods from different countries. It was a short of a multicultural fest. In conclusion there are a lot of activities (e.g. Etwinning projects) teachers can do but first of all they must have in their minds as a quide the basic principles.

Silvia, Italia

silvia_gradi — 2016-09-21 15:55:35 UTC

The proposals are interesting activities. In my classes I also teach history and geography, materials that lend themselves to cooperative learning technique. With students of 13 years, for example, we have realized works on Italian emigration to America or customs and traditions of the European countries and several continents.

Simona C, Italy

simoneva_2000 — 2016-09-21 16:22:50 UTC

Last year my pupils at Middle School took part of an eTwinning project with a French class. It was a very motivating experience for them. They practised some English and French and shared personal information about their families, free time activities, school and their own village, through photos or paintings. Some of them had of course African or Asian origins. My students were so curious about their partners and really liked the project. In the past I also organised some special workshops on music or traditions from different countries, where my foreign pupils from China or Marocco had the direct chance to talk about the favourite singer or band in details.

Maria Maddalena Italy

mariamaddalena_pallotta1 — 2016-09-21 16:32:45 UTC

I teach in a primary school. often I invite my foreign students to talk about their holidays and their traditions. Often nela year-end party we have involved the parents inviting them to prepare their dishes that then we all ate together. I find it very interesting proposals for Alicia and Erika and I believe that I can apply in my classroom.

Lorena, Italy. In my classes I teach history and geography ( for the aim of that subject it's easy use cooperative learning technique). With my students of 10-11 years, for example, last year we realized works on Italian and on French and on German a game about customs and traditions. I find very interesting the proposals for Alicia and Erika; I talk about these to my collegues and the want know more

tribbianilorena — 2016-09-21 16:40:02 UTC

Cecilia, Germany

2016-09-21 16:53:23 UTC

I already apply many of them in my Italian classes: I organize often activities with groups with themes that interest them. For instance once I let each small group write their own libretto and they loved it. Interviews and games also work well. I like the idea of an assignment about their favorite Italian musician! With a colleague in Russia we have organized an exchange of emails between the students, but maybe a more complex project could motivate them even more!

Rosa Giuliano - Italy

rosag73 — 2016-09-21 17:01:29 UTC

I think both Alicia and Erika's proposals are very interesting for us. I also have experienced how important and engaging are etwinning projects , the use of technology , quizzes and games. I regularly use Kahoot both as warm-up and revision activities. Lessons deal with various topics related to the different students' cultural background. Etwinning offers a wide range of projects or you can create your own and personalize it. Three years ago I took part in a project which involved also a school from Bulgaria and one of my student was from Bulgaria. You can imagine how engaging was this experience for my pupils.

Blas V., Spain

2016-09-21 17:23:31 UTC

We have participate in some Comenius and Erasmus projects, and this has helped our students to acquire several abilities, not just related with the language but the use of technologies, social nets and the way to face problems in our own environment.

Svetlana (Estonia)

2016-09-21 18:21:53 UTC

I used also a lot of possobilities to activate my students. Better can say that often I actvate them to much. I use puzzles, practical works, electronical quizes.

Tiziana -ITALY

2016-09-21 18:43:29 UTC

Projects can help us develop intercultural competences. Thanks to the modern technology students are offered opportunities for learning together and from the others. I think that language teachers are involved in teaching the languages and the new competences. Using SKYPE AND ETWINNING are good examples of what students can do.

Inna, Ukraine

innalevchenk79 — 2016-09-21 18:50:35 UTC

I think project activities are the best, especially taking part
in e-Twinning projects.

Elena Azzurra, Italy

2016-09-21 18:51:57 UTC

I usually propose many groups tasks in class and I try to engage students in team activities because I really like the idea that when you are the a team you don’t mind about likes/dislike or about cultural diversity… you are just a team and you work with the others! This could help them go beyond prejudices and build a positive attitude towards the class mates.

I haven’t use eTwinning yet but this year I really like to test it because it appears to me a great tool to make students communicate with people from other country and other cultures.

Paweł, Polska

2016-09-21 18:58:09 UTC

The examples presented by Alicia and Erica are very inspiring. It is true in class we have a very wide field to create new ways of teaching. Of course in my school we use many models of activating teaching, but I think we don’t take care of our students from other countries in a sufficient extent. They learn regular school subjects, practice musical instruments, participate in a school musical projects (orchestral, choir) but our teachers seldom think about their cultural and ethnic differences. Everybody seems to agree that foreigner have to adjust to be not a stranger.
My proposition of class activity is so that student have to create musical story about their country. They prepare musical examples of national songs, dances, folk dramas, make presentations or speaches. This must be musical description of country and its residents. During finally summary all class discuss a widespread problemm of stereotypical view on other nations and distrust of foregin. The project is realized during one month.

Anastasia, Greece

2016-09-21 20:17:57 UTC

I teach physical education and i choose traditional dances, outdoor activities and games from around the world to make my students to think about diversity, human rights, racism, multiculturalism.

Ana Abaladas - Primary School Teacher (Portugal, Lisbon, Sintra)

ana_abaladas — 2016-09-21 20:56:00 UTC

The teacher can carry out various activities to develop intercultural skills in students, such as dialogue on cultural diversity, exploration of images of different cultures, reading and dramatization of stories, group work, project based learning, research with family, etwinning projects , cultural week about different countries ... I think it is a matter of creativity by the teacher and that this can also ask for suggestions of activities to students who are related to cultural diversity.

Angelina Alberico, Italy

2016-09-21 21:42:07 UTC

Insert a different culture child in the classroom is a great treasure, because it makes us to know a completely different world. I think that the projects are important because children learn to live together

Sunay,Turkey

sunayefe — 2016-09-21 22:16:11 UTC

The activities and the ideas presented by Alicia and Erika are really interesting. My students made an e-twinning project with students from english and Türkçe using its platform. It was a great chance to know each other and to learn about the different cultures.teaching in primary school I use often this kind of activities ,from music to drama and cooperative learnig.Last year for the first time we were involved in a fantastic Etwinning project

Carla Senis, Italy

carla_senis — 2016-09-22 05:00:01 UTC

Foreign students give us the opportunity to learn something more...For EDL my students made typical cakes of their country, described them into two languages and shared with their classmates.
Etwinning projects give us a deeper opportunity to know better other countries and cultures

Mariella Gallo, Italy

mgallo271 — 2016-09-22 06:48:36 UTC

I have nerver used ETwinning and I hope to use it. I know how much confident are the students with technology but it is not always possible to use it. I usually ask them to create something with paper and colors to create a poster

Elisabetta, Italy

2016-09-22 06:49:07 UTC

Alicia and Erika's activities are interesting and helpful. I think project activities and group works are the key, because students are motivated to solve a problem or complete a task by collaborating with each other, thus developing empathy and open-mindedness towards other people.

Mariella Gallo, Italy

mgallo271 — 2016-09-22 06:57:39 UTC

...CONTINUE
Students have produced good products and have enjoyed a lot cooperating all together. Alicia and Erika's advice is precious.

Danuta,Pl

2016-09-22 06:58:20 UTC

In Polish gimnazjum (secondary school) students are obliged to make an educational project. So the topic of challenge-based or problem–based learning is familiar to me as a teacher. I also worked on the Comenius / Erasmus + projects. Alicia’s and Erika’s advice inspired me how I can give my students the opportunity to leave their comfort zone in a safe but exciting way.

gaialombardi69 — 2016-09-22 07:45:55 UTC

gaialombardi69 — 2016-09-22 07:45:58 UTC

Gaia. Italy

gaialombardi69 — 2016-09-22 07:58:39 UTC

In my daily work., I always use games as a mean of communication. in both native and foreign language. I think that games are the main way to get in touch with children and to help them interact and express themselves. With younger pupils, I used ball games to help them interact, tell their names or the country they're from. With older pupils I use collaborative group games. Here you can find the link to an interesting article about collaborative games, and some examples. I'm sorry, it's only in iItalian....
http://www.liber-rebil.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/elenchi_giochi_cooperat.pdf

Luigi, Italy

luigi_grifone1 — 2016-09-22 08:17:19 UTC

All these suggestions are inspiring as well as the principle behind them: engage your students to get better results in terms of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking.
I recently discoverd HSTRY, an excellent app to create timelines: I'm going to use it to work on writing skills and to give students the opportunity to introduce themselves in a different way.

Olga Martins, Portugal

olgacarvalhomartins — 2016-09-22 08:25:04 UTC

I liked to listen to Alicia and Erika's talking about activities and suggestions. I like to play language games , develop roleplaying activities (written by students) and make project activities. I started making Project Based learning so many years ago, knowing that it was one of the best ways to motivate students and make them learn, research, talk to their families and produce collaboartive work.
Also the Comenius and Erasmus Projects I have coordinated and participated are really very good exoeriences to learn, to urderstand the others and their cultures and ways of living. All the activities developed in these Projects with all the tools we can use such as :Twinning/Twinspace, Skype lessons, mobilities, E-books, Webmags are example of bery good experiences.

Mafalda L. - Italy

2016-09-22 08:50:52 UTC

I think some of the activities presented by Alicia and Erika are great (and easy to apply in some of my classes)!

I already asked my students to talk with their elderly relatives and ask them how school was like in the past or if some of them travelled abroad in search of work.

To integrate foreign students I proposed the "Religion game" and the "How is school in the country I come from" activities.

Italy has lots of "cultural diversity" too, as every region has it's own dialect and traditions, so I proposed a "Recipes from all italian regions" activity.

Since I teach in south Italy, I teach my students to overcome stereotypes on southern people (we're bad, delinquents, ignorant and uncivilized) by learning how ancient is our culture and how rich of hystory is our city and region.
For examlpe: how calabrian dialect contains words from all mediterranean languages (and more): ancient french, german, latin, greek and arab too.

In Italy we also have a memorial day dedicated to the Shoah. In south Italy we had lots of Jewish communities in the past, but there's none nowadays. Why? Some students asked home abouti it and some of them discovered they belonged to jewish families converted to catholicism.

Actually, there's no internet connection in my school and I can't plan some "virtual journey around the world", so I think I'll propose the "make your own quiz" activity. They'll really love to challenge each other!

Rosa/Italy

rosadilonardo — 2016-09-22 10:05:32 UTC

Elisabetta, Italy

elysweet — 2016-09-22 10:12:32 UTC

As the Universal Exposition Expo was hosted in Milan in 2015, and the chosen theme was "Feed the planet", we decided to pin on a huge world map all the countries of the children of our school, we had more than 30 of them. Around the map we put the pictures of typical fuits of these countries (Middle East, Far East, South America, Central Africa, Europe) that the children had to look for on the Internet. We then asked each famility to give us a recipe of a typical dish of their country with onefruit as an ingredient (recipe that the children had to write on the computer). We put all the recipes around the world map and on a table in front of it we had a little display of all these fruits (some of them were not able to find at local supermarkets!).

Kelly, Rome (Italy)

KellyVivi — 2016-09-22 10:50:56 UTC

As far as my experience, I usually use the first example ( "ask your relatives which were their dreams and expectation when they were 12 or 13, and if it became true") because it helps me to introduce past sentences (I teach Spanish) but also because my students can talk with their relatives about their lives (and they learn lots of things!) and understand how different was life before and the differences about traditions, ways of life and habits. It is interesting because even if we were all from Italy, there were many cultural differences, from north to south. We discuss together, laugh and think about things we never imagine.

Elsa Pereira, PT

elsammhp — 2016-09-22 13:19:09 UTC

Last 6 april, in Portugal, all schools have participated in an activity called "And if it was me to have to leave?". All students bring to school on their schoolbag a few things that they have choose to leave the country and explain why they have choose that. It was a great experience, because portuguese students must be a" foreing student".
I usually use some collaborative activities.
in group the students check the countries, the traditional food, the traditions, songs, photos, using some links.

Roberta, Italy

r_gramenzi — 2016-09-22 13:20:35 UTC

I teach English in secondary schools. Last year I had a class with a high number of foreign students. Some of lessons were about typical dishes around the world, personal tastes and local or national festivities. All these lessons were good opportunities to let my students take part in the conversation reporting their own personal experiences and knowledge, while learning English at the same time. These lessons were successful because they rose curiosity and were a starting point for further research, discussions and exchange of points of view. All of us learnt a lot from the other, and developed a greater sensibility towards other cultures, ideas, tastes and ways of living.

Giada, Italy

giadapantuosco — 2016-09-22 13:25:45 UTC

I think that the best way to devolop students' intercultural competence is to talk about their festivities. By doing so they can discover a lot about each others costums and lores.

Theodosis

2016-09-22 13:25:52 UTC

In my class I have children who come from 12 different countries, so our first topic of the year was to introduce our countries and myths we don't know about them!

cinzia,Italy

2016-09-22 13:53:39 UTC

Pefkoula Stagia, Greece

2016-09-22 13:54:01 UTC

Fairy tales and literature, music and art from every child’s cultural and national background can be perfectly incorporated in many learning activities and they can be interpreted in many different ways – reading and writing, role play, problem – solving.

"How shall I talk of the sea to the frog,
If it has never left his pond ?
How shall I talk of the frost to the bird of the summerland,
If it has never left the land of its birth?
How shall I talk of life with the sage,
If he is prisoner of his doctrine?"
Chung Tsu, 4th Century B.C.

V

2016-09-22 14:11:45 UTC

Vali,Romania

2016-09-22 14:11:45 UTC

Vali,Romania

2016-09-22 14:11:49 UTC

In my school we have a corner where we present the traditions, national costumes, folklore of the ethnic groups that learn here,in the same school. We organize cultural evenings, we learn to dance one from eachother, we learn to cook one from eachother.

Claudia, Italy

claudia_conca81 — 2016-09-22 14:21:16 UTC

I think that the best thing that we can do is to make activities that include manual skills, such as the art of scrapbooking to create a collection of traditions, dishes, religions, fairy tales, music and so on.
The experiences of Alicia and Erika are very important because they can teach us a different way to understand and share other cultures.

Nuria martínez, S

nuria125 — 2016-09-22 14:41:07 UTC

Nuria martínez, Spain

nuria125 — 2016-09-22 14:41:07 UTC

Maria/Greece

110961mp — 2016-09-22 15:17:48 UTC

I find eTwinning projects an excellent way to develop my students' intercultural competence since they are all of Greek origin. Even they are 4-6 years old they have learnt a lot from other children of our partner countries.

Patrizia, Italy

2016-09-22 15:25:22 UTC

Sharing experiences is the only way to bring people together. With adults you can do many activities related to their life experience. For example, you can ask them to present to classmates a recipe typical of their country. It’s a fun way to meet others and discover that we are different but we also have things in common: everyone likes to eat together and try new dishes. In situations like this people show interest for each other and they feel valued.

Matteo, Italy

giurlanda_matteo — 2016-09-22 15:34:01 UTC

A few years ago with some classes in my school I made an intercultural project. We explained to the students in class the countries most affected by the phenomenon of emigration and the problems that cause it . During a seminar , with the collaboration of a professor at the University of Catania we examined the problems of the countries , especially in North Africa from which depart the migratory routes . Finally we went to visit for a day in a reception center for asylum seekers , to meet young immigrants and residents talk about their problems and their future prospects .

Cinzia, Italy

2016-09-22 15:42:54 UTC

Last year one of my classes participate to an E-twinning projects about Christmas: they exchange wishing cards made by them, tipical Christmas recipes with european students. I think this is benne a good beginning. I think so we could propose activities in which parents from different countries are invited to talk about their childood, school, games, tales.

Carmela, Italy

2016-09-22 15:45:02 UTC

In my school there are no initiatives that connect our students with the youth of other countries. Since there are many foreign students, we built the reception brochure for parents and pupils in different languages. In the school canteen, for example, there are written welcome in many languages.

Mónica - Portugal (Gaia)

2016-09-22 16:00:17 UTC

Children always relate to stories in a very special way. Taking the example of the activity where the students’ relatives talked about their dreams when they were young, I guess I could also do a similar thing with my students but I would probably would ask the parents and grandparents to tell a traditional story from their origin country and get together an activity where I could explore the differences but also the similarities.

Maria Grazia

mariagraziasassu — 2016-09-22 16:14:06 UTC

VasilicaGazdac,Romania

vasilicagazdac — 2016-09-22 16:17:23 UTC

In this year in my school is implemented project Erasmus+ Other, Alike,The same.
The project aims to form students in primary notions of citizenship and European history through the crisis migrants / refugees and international terrorism.
Integration of migrant pupils / refugees in school activities through product development and curricular activities, interdisciplinary and interactive lessons supports the main objective of our project.
Participating organizations:
BC 4 C. D. Breg-S.M.Volta, Monopoli, Italy-coordinator.
DIOCESANA Fundacion San Jose Marciano colleague Diocesano Santa Cruz, Guadalajara, Spain
1stPrimary School of Efkarpia, Greece Thessaloniki-
Tiberiu Morariu Secondary School Salva-Romania
Stanley Primary School, UK Blackpool-
What actions are supported:
Three transnational meeting (October 2016-Italy, June 2017 -UK, June 2018- Spain) where it will establish project implementation, interim report and the final report will be made during the 24 months of the project.
Five exchange students in the short term will run over the two-year project (January 2017-Spain, April 2017-Greece, November 2017-UK, March 2018-Romania and May 2018-Italy) where they will attend school in primary accompanied by teachers. During the meetings students and teachers will have various activities accompanying study visits, interactive lessons, activities with various local NGOs, embassies and consulates, learning with digital tools specific history and science students . All these exchanges will contribute greatly to realization of project materials brochures, calendars, games, exhibitions, films, teaching, theater, social events, thematic visits, summer school, educational conferences, magazines and books this actions visibility of the project will be taking their monthly call form activities in local and regional media, social-media, nationally and internationally through a close collaboration with NGOs, embassies, other institutions and organizations.

Vera, Italy

2016-09-22 16:45:43 UTC

I am thinking about any project to start with Erasmus+, but right now I haven't got any specific idea. I think it is very useful for students to compare their life and experiences with somebody else's life. People can learn a lot from the others.
During my Spanish lessons I really like to apply project-based or discovering learning. For example, my students work with Hispanic famous people biographies when they have to study past tenses, or interview their parents or grandparents. I strongly believe in the power of telling stories.

Doina Andrei, Romania

2016-09-22 17:26:43 UTC

An example of activity to develop students' intercultural competence is to identify the intercultural message of a photo.

Steps of the activity:

- The teacher projects the photo, students have to write down the message of the presented photo;

- Each student reads the message.

Reflection and evaluation:

- The teacher starts a discussion in the class about comparing the messages written by different students;

- The teacher asks students to formulate what are the similarities between the messages written by different pupils.

Chara Liakou, Greece

2016-09-22 17:37:24 UTC

In our Comenius meeting at our school we organised a two hours workshop about globalisation. Since the group was intercultural it was very interesting, since the students have known each other only for two days. We developed the workshop based on the book "globales Lernen" by David Selby,H.-F Rathenow and translated the work-paper into the common language, English.

gabriella s northern Italy

2016-09-22 17:45:08 UTC

Construct knowledge could be the base for successful learning process.

I consider this statement very important because it recalls the pedagocical constructivism theory according to which every man is responsible and the only who can build his own knowledge at any level. i haven't adopted such approach but i hope to dp it soon

Alicia - Spain

2016-09-22 17:52:55 UTC

It is clear that we live in an intercultural world and that there are prejudices towards poeple different from us. I think it is necessary to include the intercultural competence in the class through activities such as the ones the video has been talking about.

my work with foreign students try to identify issues that are meaningful to different cultures . I try to use maps and to help me with visual learning

perri_carmela — 2016-09-22 18:03:20 UTC

Jaime Martins, Portugal

joncmartins — 2016-09-22 18:26:59 UTC

I think that Alicia and Erika's experiences and activities/suggestions are very interesting. They showed us ways how to teach and better understand others cultures.
Playing games, watching and commenting videos, roleplaying, learning vocabulary in several languages, will allow the collaborative work and engage students to get better results and know each other better, forgetting the Cultural Diversity that can exist among them.

Lucia - Italy

2016-09-22 20:11:44 UTC

I teach Science in a first degree secondary school (11-14). When I afford the subject of genetics, usually the third year, I use to connect the part regarding phenotype with the history of racism, trying to explain how a scientific base of racism is weak. I explain them how the phenotypic differences are due to adaptation, looking from where the different students come from. Students usually feels protagonist, while the others show curiosity.

Elena. Italy

mialucrezia — 2016-09-22 20:24:51 UTC

I'd like to involve my primary school students in an e-twinning project. I think it would be very challenging for them using english in a real situation. At the same time I think this kind of project can devolop awareness of differences and similarities with students of the same age.

Laura Mongiò, Torino

2016-09-22 20:53:53 UTC

The video is really great: Alicia and Erika's experiences and activities/suggestions are very interesting! They teach us a different way to understand and share other experiences and cultures. There are a lot of activities, related to their life experience, you can use to develop intercultural competence: fairy tales and literature, music and art, religion, traditions, ancient and modern history, festivities, costums and so on ... because sharing experience is the only way to accept and to meet others

Daniela Millini, Italy

2016-09-22 21:25:55 UTC

Alicia and Erika's video are always very stimulating and rich of interesting suggestions. I agree with all they said and I especially like Alicia's idea of "creating a culture of the class" , based on collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking. At my school, in some classes, we have just started implementing some simple activities to develop the students' cultural and intercultural awareness. The outcomes of the initial brainstorming on the idea of culture were quite interesting, both for the students and the teachers; they were not exactly the same in the different classes, and they were not always what we would expected : in fact, for example, sports and the Internet were in a case elicited before religion or traditions, and there was a student ( coming from Morocco) who considered dreams as one of the most important elements of culture :) Now we are going to enrich this first results with photos, videos, music and each student will develop his/her own cultural identity card, explaining to the others what is most important for them. Similar activities are being carried out in the other partner countries and the results will be shared and discussed on the project Twinspace.

Maria Nikolova

maria_n_ss — 2016-09-22 21:46:17 UTC

I try include my students in different projects - eTwinning, Erasmus+. They participate there with pleasure. Become more tolerant and develop understanding of cultural diversity. Many of my lessons is project based. While doing things students are more motivated.

Gülşen Korucu,Turkey

gulsenkorucu — 2016-09-23 00:25:09 UTC

I attempt to stimulate my students to participate in national and international projects especially etwinning projects.To me, etwinning projects really manage to display cultural diversity with impressive and enjoyable activities.They learn to tolerate , emphatize,be intercultural person and take part collaborative activities thanks to projects.The world includes many kind of language ,cultures and tradition but indeed we have same human values

Stamatia Stamati, Ioannina-Greece

stamatiast — 2016-09-23 06:13:48 UTC

I involve my students in eTwinning projects and School Activities's Programs. My main goal is to develop their tolerance and respect to diversity.

Valeria Benatti - Italy

vally_benatti — 2016-09-23 08:37:05 UTC

In my opinion, we can deal with intercultural awareness from two points of view at school. On the one hand, eTwinning and Erasmus + programs are excellent opportunities to show students that there is a whole world outside the school, and that -fortunately- nowadays it is quite easy to keep in contact with it and get to know people from all over the world.
Nevertheless, I believe that the most difficult part is for student to understand that they meet cultural differences everyday within the class. Sometimes it is easier to be curious and fascinated by distant cultures, but it becomes more difficult when you have to cope with them on a daily basis. As it has been suggested more than once in this module and the previous one, the best solution to this problem is that students know each other while achieving a common goal. Therefore, it is very useful for students to work in small groups, where they experience different styles in working and communicating. If we want to further improve students' ability to cooperate, while at the same time let them aware that there are cultural differences that might emerge, we could deal with topics that will naturally evoke cultural diversities. Sport is a good example of this. Typical sports vary across cultures, and the values they want to convey are different. Students generally like talking about sport because it is something they practice a lot, and it might be interesting to analyse different kinds of traditional sports, to understand the values conveyed by them and to look at similarities and differences among them. With students coming from different parts of the world, the activity might be even more exciting, because they can give an internal point of view on a different reality. Indeed, it might become a great opportunity to reflect on the themes of tolerance and respect on a wide perspective

Isabella, Italy

issabella1 — 2016-09-23 09:19:57 UTC

I try to include my students in different projects as Intecultura's exchanges. But for me one of the better ways to develop intercultural competences is to create groups works and activities in which the students are motivated to solve a problem, to collaborate, to know each other and their potentialities better.

Maria Domenica Calciati

algheroapartments — 2016-09-23 09:49:10 UTC

We live in a intercultural world and at school it is important to develop intercultural competences sharing experiences and cultures with activities related to our students life using topics that our students like: sport, music, cinema

Simona C, Italy

simoneva_2000 — 2016-09-23 10:58:53 UTC

Last year my pupils at Middle School took part of an eTwinning project with a French class. It was a very motivating experience for them. They practised some English and French and shared personal information about their families, free time activities, school and their own village, through photos or paintings. Some of them had of course African or Asian origins. My students were so curious about their partners and really liked the project. In the past I also organised some special workshops on music or traditions from different countries, where my foreign pupils had the direct chance to talk about themselves (favourite singer or recipe) in details.

Thomas, Austria

t_baldauf — 2016-09-23 12:49:20 UTC

I try to include the different languages my pupils know and speak by giving them the freedom to use them for presentations. They are either allowed to translate themselves or to have someone else translating for them. I also love to start the school year by getting to know my students by an activity where they have to create a whole presentation on themselves, their hobbies and their cultural backgrounds. It is really great to see their eyes sparkle, as they are allowed to talk about themselves and be proud of who they are.

Anna Cavallo, Italy

luica771 — 2016-09-23 13:16:46 UTC

I really think useful to work with students in groups and to give them the opportunity to be involved in projects. Etwinning is a big opportunity of course. I just find a problem: i teach italian, and my students, who study seriously english and french only in the secondary school, don't have the competence needed to communicate fluently in english. i tried to involve english colleagues, but it's hard :D. i will go on with my projects, of course...

Mari

goli291174 — 2016-09-23 14:09:20 UTC

Maria Anna Casoria

goli291174 — 2016-09-23 14:09:22 UTC

In order to develop intercultural competences in the classroom, I find very involving the concrete activity of writing the biographies of different famous persons, who have diverse cultural backgrounds (a refugee biography, for example).

Katerina Kostaki, Greece

katkos2003 — 2016-09-23 15:19:55 UTC

My class has students from different cultural backgrounds so I used the idea of inviting the students into a project in which that had to describe important personalities in their country. They could talk about people from any domain, such as art, music, sports, politics, etc. The results of their work were presented in oral presentations in front of the whiole class. The students evaluated their classmates's work both in terms of both content and presentation skills.

gabriella t. - italy

gabrita2003 — 2016-09-23 15:51:31 UTC

I think that is very important to realize inside a group/ classroom a setting of respect and tollerance.
We use to start our routine with the " circle-time". Every one can spontaneously tell us their experiences, especially on monday, after the week end.
I observed that all pupils are interested in this experiance of speaking about their life. Even shy pupils, at least, start to tell us their ideas or experiences.

Francesca, Italy

kawfran77 — 2016-09-23 15:53:28 UTC

I teach in the secondary school students aged between 11 and 13 years.
I remember two beautiful experiences that have favored pupils' awareness of diversity and greater respect for other peoples. One is a project that has helped to host young Palestinian students who have been made known through the kitchen, guided tours to places of Sardinia, movies, musical performances, drawings, in which are explained customs and beliefs, and they presented a show dancing and singing to show typical characteristics of their country.
Another concerns a Comenius project that allowed me to make known to my students more deeply the culture and the education system of the Czech Republic and Irish.
necessary to increase the knowledge of other cultures and different ways of life for students citizens of the world

Angelo, Rivoli, Italy

Angelo — 2016-09-23 16:22:57 UTC

Because I teach Italian and Latin literature, I have the constraints dictated by the syllabus to be carried out. I can do something with my students with project-based learning, however, always remaining tied to content. One quite intersting activity intercultural activity I have experienced has been linked to the three rings Boccaccio's tale, on interreligious dialogue, but to develop it more I would have to just focus on this tale, which was not possible.

Giovanna, Italy

2016-09-23 16:36:43 UTC

I started to teach geography in a new school some days ago and, from what I have seen so far, there are not many students with a different cultural background. In a similar context, I think two activities can be particularly effective in order to develop intercultural competences in the students. First of all designing and implementing collaborative tasks of any kind to promote deeper knowledge of each other, and secondly, as Alicia suggested, researching on some exemplary people’s lives. This is very important especially for the subject I teach because the topics studied can became “real”.

Elena S., Italy

esperanzon — 2016-09-23 17:09:49 UTC

I really like the idea of e-Twinnig because this could even give students the chance of twinning with someone in the country they - or their families - originally came from. Of course this activity would also enhance their language skills. I believe that working as a team is always extremely effective in developing pupils' competences and that they can achieve their goals in a more satisfying way when working this way, because they feel they can really do it "by themselves" (i.e. not under the teacher's guide).
Last year my class 4 (18 year olds) did a project work on the subject of being in someway foreigners. They found out about some of their peer's origins and cultural habits and gave PowerPoint presentations on their findings.

Marcella, Italy

marfu7 — 2016-09-23 17:16:57 UTC

In my teaching practice I'm always looking for a balance which can foster a sense of community in the classroom, it's very important to create a sense of belonging in classrooms and schools because the children really need to feel part of the same group. In my  school there isn't a cross-cultural mediator neither an intercultural team.

Maria Rizza/ Sicily

rowri — 2016-09-23 17:52:29 UTC

I think that a teacher can helpstudents to develop a multicultural attitude whatecer subject she/ he teaches; History , Language Teachers have lots of opportunties to achieve this goal. Of course it is aso important to organize languages in a way so that lessons can engage students to deal with the topic. I am thinking of Project based learning; giving the students some assignement about their families background , the origin of their Family name ;this makes it possible to find out that even in Sicily we have the so called " melting points " as we have mgirants but also we had different people from different places, languages and culture, who settled down in Sicily in thepast century . This could be the starting point to find out their roots, to learn more about their menatlity, food traditions, festivities etc.. As for the innovative pedagogy Alice and Erika mentioned , I liked it and I use this kind of Learning approach : project based Learning, working inteam, arranging the students findings by using presentations, or videos, or role play. Yes this is a very engaging way for students which let them improve thier Learning a lot .

Lina (Italy)

2016-09-23 18:08:09 UTC

I worked in several schools where you invite foreign parents to school weekly to talk about their culture. Also provided are moments of cooking, gaming, and narration to approach all children to different cultures.

viki doga, greece

2016-09-23 19:04:31 UTC

with erasmus pupil meet pupils from other countries

Annamaria, Italy

2016-09-23 19:30:32 UTC

Years ago I exchanged letters with students with other countries and we were surprised by the incredible omologation between teenagers. They used the same xbox, and they were crazy about the same singers and footabll players.

Anna Bormida, genova, Italy

annabormida — 2016-09-23 20:10:15 UTC

Matteo D. Italy

2016-09-23 20:11:12 UTC

I think these tools could be very usefull in my classroom. I like very much the activity concerned with the interview of children's family and all the practices concerned with the increasing of curiosity in knowing the other.

Sandra, Northern Germany

2016-09-23 20:28:28 UTC

most of the tools from former EUN courses and also the tools mentioned here are helpful and can be used immediately.
I could also envisage a QR rally in our school involving students from other classes to learn about some of the results of our classes (such as results of 'my mother's/father's dreams - my dreams)

Ivana, Italy

Ivana91 — 2016-09-24 06:28:46 UTC

Gianni Stival, Italy

gianni_stival — 2016-09-24 08:22:02 UTC

I teach science with pupils of 15 years of age and I dont have had so much students with different languages until now. They were mostly newly arrived in Italy which didn’t speak any word in italian or students arrived more than five years before. Those arrived more than five years before were already integrated in the italian community, I would say that they are more italians that of the culture of their parents. With the newly arrived I teached essentially disciplinary jargon with the help of the Fryer diagram. But now I have a student who is in Italy from 11 months and I plan to use essentially collaborative learning and to evaluate his progress with a portfolio both for the disciplinary knowledge and for the language progress.

Ge, italy

ma_la1976_gm — 2016-09-24 09:18:09 UTC

the ideas presented are very interesting but not easily applicable in my preschool classroom!

IDA, ITALY

idadinatale — 2016-09-24 09:53:38 UTC

I find very interesting and useful EriKa and Alicia example. In the past I always dedicated a day in which the students have to bring a cake, made according the original recipes of their countries or regions

Amélia Vilarinho, Belgium

2016-09-24 11:12:54 UTC

I find both Alicia and Erika ideas very interesting and innovative. Particularly, I would like to try to use Erica's suggestion regarding childrens' family dreams as project with our day care children.

Vicky Archondi, Greece

vicky_archondi — 2016-09-24 11:32:42 UTC

All the ideas presented in the above video are motivating, innovative and applicable in our classrooms. I usually employ the family interview activity because on the one hand it helps me activate my learners and on the other it provides me with vital information on their cultural backgrounds. Also, I'm really fond of the etwinning projects and when time permits I delve into them. I really liked the idea with the blog and I'll definitely implemented given that my students are technology experts.

Patrizia Ceccarini, San Mauro Pascoli, Italy.

2016-09-24 13:11:40 UTC

I teach Music in a Italian Middle School. So I usually propose an instrumental repertoire from various parts of Europe and the world. Furthermore, we sing songs in languages learned at school.
Also, we study the lives of the composers and their travels around the Europe.

Laskarina Polemi, Greece

laspolemi — 2016-09-24 14:42:18 UTC

Being a teacher of English, I believe it is of the utmost importance for my students to be acquainted with different cultures. Just like Alicia suggests in the video, I often ask them to find info on a person whose ideas they find inspiring and present their work in class. Last year, I asked them to work in groups and upolad their presentations on a Prezi created by me. So, they had the chance to revise their work as well as see the work process of the other teams. (The project in question was on the EU countries and famous personalities from each country).

Maria A., Serres/Greece

2016-09-24 15:12:01 UTC

My young pupils in primary school created an international puzzle. On each puzzle piece there was the presentation of a pupil. Two classes were participating, a Greek and a Czech. The title of the project was "we all fit in the puzzle" and of course it could be done with more nationalities participating.

antonella77

2016-09-24 16:09:50 UTC

I found one of the Alicia’s activity very interesting. I think that involving students giving them examples of famous characters and personalities of the different parts of the world can be useful. It is possible to choose not only historical or political personalities but it could be also interesting for them to choose famous musicians or actors coming from different countries. Exploring their biography we can compare the diffent stories and habits using a multicultural point of view. In my opinion it is very hard to use instruments like cameras, mobiles and skype. Even if teen agers uses those instruments every day I think that they will not use them to study: new technologies are seen as means of communication and not as useful instruments for researching

Manuel Garcia Naples, Italy

2016-09-24 16:11:24 UTC

I believe that incorporating project based learning into a culturally diverse environment is a great way to acknowledge each student's creativity and uniqueness in the classroom while allowing them to work together and reach a common goal. For example, splitting student into groups and providing a question for them to answer or a project to complete is an excellent way for them to interact and discuss the variety of ways to approach the subject. Stimulating discussions and facilitating their interactions with others allows the students to take into consideration a variety of different points of view and constructive criticism which will be useful life skills to know in the future.

Krystyna Pasek-Corsar

krysiapasek — 2016-09-24 16:31:33 UTC

Projects are fantastic if the families are willing to participate. Parents of kids that I teach are extremely busy very often working over 12 hours and being single parents so they keep away from school life. Kids are very keen to share their life story and present it to other students, they love working in a group. the best way is to put different nationalities in one group and then they have to speak English :-) which is great for EAL. It benefits them and the teacher because both,learning and teaching, take place in so diverse group.

Giovanna Wiplinger Croce - Italy

giovywip — 2016-09-24 16:48:31 UTC

PBL for students is always very engaging and to develop cultural competences in teaching English is to share with each other for each feast day or festivity the peculiarity of each country's customs and appreciate all of them.
But I must admit that I have to explore much more technology in order to engage children to build their own knowledge....Due to lack of ICT means that isn't possible as I would like to

Stathis, Greece

slikidis — 2016-09-24 17:29:57 UTC

I found all the ideas in the above video motivating and easily to be applied in the classroom. Recently I asked from my students to create their on blog and update everything the like that presents their culture, their identity and information from their countries. I also had to take an interview with the members of their families as to let me know better the background of my students.

Nancy Papachristou, Greece

nancy_papa — 2016-09-24 18:08:26 UTC

So interesting activities suggested by Erica and Alicia! I have used a quite number of them in my classes. First of all I strongly believe that the role play activities help so much in order to develop empathy. In my history classes my students love creating their genealogical tree and collect stories and myths from their grandparents’ past. Each one presents his findings and all together discuss about the similarities of their different cultural backgrounds.

Francesco M. Manno, Perugia, Italy

franzmanno — 2016-09-24 20:25:04 UTC

Very interesting ideas and starting points proposed by Alicia and Erica! Yes, I agree with the ones who think that PBL is an engaging activity for students, even though it is not always feasible in all kind of classroom.

Ariste Pigiaki, Greece

afpigiaki — 2016-09-24 20:44:38 UTC

I believe that project-based activities are quite effective in engaging all the students giving them the opportunity to present their talents while learning.

In our English book there is a unit dedicated to customs and traditions. After raising them the question why it is important to keep our customs and traditions alive, I was quite surprised to hear some interesting answers. They mentioned that traditions are part of our identity and culture that unite people of the same group. Then I asked them to think of a specific festivity and present examples of customs that they keep to celebrate it. I had students from different cultural background (South Greece, Central Greece, Albania, England, Germany, Ireland, Holland) so the customs mentioned were various. In some cases the students couldn’t present them in English and decided to dramatize them in the classroom. It was really amazing! Following, there was a text about Halloween. Some of the students weren’t familiar with this festivity so they had the chance to learn about it. Then I asked them to find a similar to their culture activity and compare it with Halloween (e.g. costumes, parties, food, and historical background). In groups they made a table comparing Halloween, the Greek Carnival and the Albanian Carnival. In the end, the English students helped to carve a Halloween pumpkin in the classroom, other students made a video of “how to make a Halloween pumpkin” using Movie Maker and some other baked traditional English muffins made from the pumpkin which we tasted in a later lesson. So, I believe it was a project that helped students learn and experience interculturalism in the classroom.

Kristina - Vienna

2016-09-24 21:20:45 UTC

I absolutely agree that project based learning is very essential. I teach at a European Middle School in Vienna and we have got a subject called European Studies. It is a mixture of History, Biology and Geography - taught in English.

In year 1, the main project is about the kids' heritage.
- We find out on a map where our heritage comes from
- the kids get a prompt about their research goals
- they do research on their heritage (books, Internet, interviewing parents, ...)
- they choose what they would like to present
- they write their presentation texts in English with help of their teacher and our native speaker teacher
- they work on their own or in groups
- They learn rules how to design a poster and create them
- They learn how to present in front of a crowd
- They organize a buffet with the help of their parents
- They design invitations
- They prepare some opening or closing acts (dancing, greeting, etc.)
- they have a buddy who gives them signals during the presentation (if they talk to quietly, too quickly, etc.) and who help to put up the posters.
- they learn how to give feedback in a motivating and supporting way
- they learn how to react when they are too nervous to speak or say wrong things

I LOVE this project and I think it is incredible WHAT the 10-year-olds learn from all this.

Each year we have one of these big projects for every grade and I can only repeat that I am a big fan of interdisciplinary learning.

Sebastiano, Italy

sebastianocuffari — 2016-09-24 23:14:59 UTC

I find the ideas proposed interesting. In my classes I repeatedly experienced role-playing activities and discussions aimed at broadening the knowledge of others, and the feelings of others positions

Clelia, Italy

dccclasses — 2016-09-25 07:41:21 UTC

I' m going to start a etwinning project with other countries. Last year one of my colleguae started the project and it was a good experience. This year we are going to plan an activity where pupils can change Christmas cards, share videos, or writing on a blog. Pupils can feel more involved and motivated when they know that what they are learning is useful and engaging.

mmmjakeli — 2016-09-25 08:17:20 UTC

I agree that PBL based learning is very actual and useful. It's very effective for engaging all students. For now I think to start new project in eTwinning...

Alice Cabrelle, Italy

alice_cabrelle — 2016-09-25 08:18:15 UTC

I think that eTwinning is a really interesting and involving opportunity to rise students partecipation and interest about school. They also work togheter, help eachother and know better their classmate, giving value to their own differences and qualities. Working togeter is the key to learn how to deal with different opinions, values, habits and customs.

Georgia Greece

georgiavou46 — 2016-09-25 10:52:10 UTC

Last year i participated in an eTwinning project called "Christmas in Europe" .My students and i learned to collaborate and share with other students cards ,music and costumes .We created an electronic book with recipes from Europe .It was a wonderfull experience.I believe that eTwinning is the most involving and callaborating opportunity to develop students intercultural competence. As a preschool teacher i often use role-playing activities and project based learning.

Jasna Šojer/Croatia

jasna_sojer — 2016-09-25 10:52:24 UTC

eTwining is a great tool to raise awareness on cultural differences and meet peers from different countries. As we for last 3 years have projects on citizenship, cultural diversity is included in each of them.

Alessandra Pavese, Italy

2016-09-25 12:08:54 UTC

I take care of all projects explained and discussed for the future but in this moment I have very few pupils from different cultures and it's very difficult to apply them in my classrooms

Georgia Alexouda, Greece

alexouda — 2016-09-25 12:20:25 UTC

I have designed and implemented several eTwinning projects. In one eTwinning project, we have visited our partners’ town and school in Germany and our partners visited our town and school. In my opinion these projects help students to develop intercultural competence.

Janice.Barcelona

janicegutierrez19 — 2016-09-25 12:50:02 UTC

I only create some events and situations in class to solve some problems and to know more about each other. But i never heard about this Skype activities or sending letters, so I would really like to practise this in class. Thanks a lot for the examples.

Gina, Hungary

gina_klomer — 2016-09-25 14:17:08 UTC

I'm thinking about using these activities during the programs where we show kids how is it like to be disabled, using a wheelchair, so on. Especially in the classes where my students are learning at. I'm still thinking about possible adaptions, but one exciting idea I had is to search for famous disabled people, like Paralympic champions, actors, singers. There are a lot and could give them so much motivation!

Alex_PT

teacheralex_dua — 2016-09-25 15:42:34 UTC

I find Alicia and Erika’s ideas interesting and doable in an etwinning project or in class. As I usually work with older students, I tend to focus on curricula stuff and serious issues, for example, my last project was to make them aware about the news, about current events, namely the refugee crisis. A planned PBL for my classroom is on “How can our school aquaponics greenhouse be sustainable?” involving a variety of subjects such as Geography, Sciences, Physics/Chemistry and obviously English as the communication language.

Alicia mentioned heroes for sts to research and learn about and I immediately recalled an activity that I believe deeply impacted my sts / class. I used a clip from the movie “The boy in Striped Pyjamas” to introduce the topic of the WW2, Jews, Holocaust, tolerance, respect… and one of my students wrote a text on Aristides de Sousa Mendes (to be honored soon as a national hero by our President) published at http://myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=A_Sousa_Mendes_3ma_PT_2015 .

Still with the same class, about two years ago, I had a Muslim student for the very first time and that summer was his first time to fast in Ramadan just like any other adult Muslim. The situation was shared by the student himself in our class blog, commented by their classmates and even by fellow Muslims from different countries. It was an amazing opportunity to develop students’ intercultural competence! If curious, please check http://shiningasoure.blogspot.pt/2014/07/came-most-difficult-moment-of-muslims.html and http://shiningasoure.blogspot.pt/2014/07/ramadan-explained-simply.html ; in case you’re a Muslim, too, please add your comment(s). Many thanks!

Now let me leave you with an excerpt from a favourite poem:
People embrace religion

but still they fuss and fight

many believe in one God

so why on earth don’t they unite

there are many different faiths

we have lots of beliefs

so let’s celebr8 our differences

instead of crying out in grief.

And the repeated lines are...

WE SHOULD CELEBR8

NOT DISCRIMIN8

LEARN TO APPRECIATE

DON’T PLAYER HATE

BECAUSE THERE’S ROOM FOR YOU

AND THERE’S SPACE FOR ME

LIVING IN THIS WORLD OF DIVERSITY

LET’S CELEBR8 DIVERSITY .

(Celebr8, by LEVI TAFARI)

Mariella, Rome, Italy

fasanelli_mariella — 2016-09-25 16:15:12 UTC

All the activities mentioned by Alicia and Erika sound fun and interesting. There are some common elements which underlie all of them: high level of active engagement on pupils' part, fun activities rooted in kids' interests, opening up of the classroom to other classes also from other countries. I always try to work on these elements in my projects with kids: e.g. we decide at the beginning of the project who else we will involve: parents, grandparents, another class from our school, other teachers, other classes from other schools through eTwinning, experts). An example can be found at this link http://www.ismachiavelli.eu/pags/spip.php?article991

Alexandra, Greece

alecakarkatsa — 2016-09-25 16:40:38 UTC

Great input and ideas that can be applied. In my classes I have used articles with people from different countries, not only the western countries. I have also used material describing traditions and habits very different from our own way of life (quizz
es, songs, poems).

Augusto. Italy

augusto_tedesco — 2016-09-25 16:57:47 UTC

I have to say that the activities and the ideas Alicia and Erika have proposed are quite interesting and absolutely worth trying. This year I hope to sign my students in for an e-twinning project with students from Eastern Europe using its platform, as I am confident it can be a great chance for them to know each other and to learn about different cultures.

Floriana, Italy

florianalarovere — 2016-09-25 17:32:37 UTC

I find Alicia and Erika's activities and ideas interesting and useful: students take an active part in the learning process and if they
do experience of the diversity, learning benefits from it.
I generally use material describing culture and I will use these suggestions in the future

Carmen G., Italy

carmen_garau00 — 2016-09-25 18:04:27 UTC

Alicia and Erika's ideas and activities are very interesting for me, so I think this year, with their help, I'll do something very interesting with my students. They often work in groups and the video suggested me a project which could improve their intercultural competences using Information Technology. They will make a research about life, culture, languages, religions of their foreign classmates, either by searching in web either interviewing their friends families; then they will apply Information Technology to develope a web site and present it to the classroom.
Yeah, I think it's will be a great job! Thanks Alicia, thanks Erika!

Rania, Greece

raniasarri68 — 2016-09-25 18:32:07 UTC

These are all great ideas. Project work, especially in groups, and empathy development activities are very effective in my opinion. E-twinning cooperations are very important as well. As I mentioned in module 1, I use activities such as The origin map, Our biography poems, My self project, Our name stories, My homeland Project, Comparing languages in traditional songs, fairy tales, lullabies.

Lorenzo, Italy

lorenzoaresi — 2016-09-25 19:07:42 UTC

Alicia and Erika's ideas to develop students' intercultural competence are great. I appreciate them because they are practical examples that make students think, talk and discuss about the languages they speak and their own identity.
I think I'll be able to implement them in my classroom (students aged 14-18): it shouldn't be that difficult because I'm a foreign language teacher so, even though some of them may seem too easy as related to the curriculum, they won't be for my first/second year students.

Samanta, Italy

samac1217 — 2016-09-25 19:51:32 UTC

Group activities and circle communication are education actions that create a sense of learning comunity. In my lessons I use dialogues in circle , where someone could say own opinion.
Often I read tales about different countries and all togheter we reflect about the similar aspects or the differences. Other materials that I use are songs, poems, objects, pictures, videos.

Francesco, Italy

2016-09-25 20:27:31 UTC

Being a teacher of a foreign language (English), I think the ideas proposed by Alicia and Erika can be a very good hint to start new projects in my classroom. Learning a language is a scenario where there is a huge amount of activities you can develop to improve awareness about cultural diversity, starting from the words related to the specific traditions of a country: food, drinks, famous people, games, cities and famous landscapes, celebrations... everything can be put as a game or a group activity, where everyone should investigate and discover about his/her classmate's original country. I usually do it by playing games with geographical maps and quizzes with card or online based, and it works really well because it's engaging and helps every student learn quickly about the lifestyle of their school friends.

Vanessa, Italy

2016-09-26 04:52:45 UTC

Our colleagues' projects are really interesting and motivating for students. I teach english at high school: an intercultural project may consist in students who interview their granparents and relatives in native language, and simultaneously translate in English what they say.

Donka, Bulgaria

dkirovska — 2016-09-26 08:12:11 UTC

Indeed, I have heard interesting ideas for working with children who have different cultural traditions and language. Personally, I always want the kids to know each other, to try to find interesting things in the life and traditions of each ethnic group.
International projects, even etvuinning projects are a great opportunity to cover more aspects of cultural diversity

Adela, Romania

al3da_777 — 2016-09-26 10:26:12 UTC

The eTwinning is a very interesting activity and I think my students would love it. Unfortunately, there haven't been any eTwinning projects since now in our school but it's never too late.

Laura T, ITALY

laura_tosi75 — 2016-09-26 11:19:50 UTC

Project-based and problem-based learning, drama and dance, activities involving communities... I totally agree and I'll try to use these suggestions.

I'd like to mention story-telling, cooking, surveys, roleplays, music as well.

Paola, Italy

paolagag — 2016-09-26 13:26:29 UTC

Just today we celebrate at school the European Language Day. My class met other three classes of the school in a common space where children sang the song "Hello to all the children of the world" and learned from their school friends coming from other countries some new words in their languages. It was a significant experience: the foreign students felt themself motivated and really proud to speak in their mother language and to have something to teach to their friends and to their teachers! The italian children were really interested and amazed to listen to their friends speaking unashamed their languages.

Cláudia Rolo, Portugal

claudiarolo12 — 2016-09-26 13:32:52 UTC

I believe that the ideas of the Erika and Alicia are great ideas. I emphasize group work, playful and expressive activities, problem solving and the use of new technologies for the rapprochement of cultures.

Francesca Pecorella, italy

sabrina_vespier — 2016-09-26 13:56:22 UTC

There are a lot of nice activities that i propose to all my students, for example singing together song of their favorite singers. It's a really fun and educational activity!

Paola,

ic3rodariannecchino21 — 2016-09-26 14:16:36 UTC

I find interesting proposals for Alice and Erika. I make my lessons more interesting, often dramatize the works of great authors with shows at year end, or I analyze and I sing the lyrics of famous singers. I also use, as a virtual classroom the Edmodo platform.

Andrea, Italy

andrearaccagni8 — 2016-09-26 14:58:38 UTC

A very useful project used in my school in order to value cultural diversity could be theatre, a project developed throughout the year involving all pupils.
Our school also organizes some useful laboratories to develop a positive relationship between students: cooking, guitar, cheerleading, ...

In my activity, although I have had migrants only since last year, I regularly plan group works (with different roles inside the group) and pair work; I believe cooperation to reach the same purpose can boost also social competences.

Alina, from Romania

saftaalina — 2016-09-26 15:17:32 UTC

Students present a tradition, a traditon food or music from a country that he/she likes. Then try to say a few words in an other language.

Wolfgang, Austria

oelzant — 2016-09-26 15:26:20 UTC

It is a great difference if you have only one or two "foreign" students in the class or more. Last year in one class I had students of s7 nationalities. They had to make a presentation in german language about some topic. So I proposed to present something about their country.

Nils / Germany

2016-09-26 16:06:07 UTC

Partner interviews: The students interview their partners and afterwards get together in groups of 6 and everybody tells the group the answers of his/her partner.

Ang3, Italy

2016-09-26 16:57:39 UTC

Really interesting is to use some internet devices such as Skype. Internet environment is important. I personally used more and more time one of the projects of Erasmus +: Etwinning to discover different culture and let pupils to be curious about the "different." Dramas and roleplays are also useful to engage learning activity.

Maria Cristina, Italy

2016-09-26 17:39:33 UTC

We've got ots of students from foreign countries, so I invite them to introduce themselves to their collegues by using some funny Apps (such as Voki), to share their experiences, culture, traditions and so on.

Ana Fonseca, Portugal

2016-09-26 17:49:26 UTC

Alicia and Erika give us some very useful ideas. I usually try to engage my students by asking them to present themselves (family, habits, hobbies, country) and those who arew from other countries have the opportunity to engage with each other. I also use the project based learning approach the let students work with others and conduct their learning process and this way they have to interact with multicultural students. Of course the use of ne technologies also helps when we are working with students from diverse countries.

Ourania, Greece

raniaropi — 2016-09-26 20:02:49 UTC

The ideas presented in the video were very interesting especially the ones which require the use of technology, since I haven't incoroporated in that way in my lessons. Mostly I used role playing in order to recreate everyday communication.

Teresa Oliveira - Portugal

teresatabcid7 — 2016-09-28 10:08:15 UTC

I've done some activities very similar to those presented in the video. For example, last year, in a work on personal characteristics and on biographical texts, I asked students to do research on Olympic athletes from their own countries. Students have, for example, to search information about the athletes, about sports, about the countries where they held the Olympic games. In the end, everyone had to make a presentation in class and also had to create an infographic to exhibit at school on the selected athlete. It was a good project, involving students individually but also in collaborative work, when using some apps and that had an impact on the school, since the work had an audience .

Sibel SAYGIN, İstanbul- TURKEY

sibelsaygin — 2016-09-28 12:25:43 UTC

first of all I want to say that these ideas are worth to try. The e-twinning projects are very useful to make sense of the world around us. Students learn other cultures and collaborate with them in a safe platform. Besides this these kind of projects give opportunity to students to learn ict and new technologies by working group work.

Simona De Paola, Italy

simonadepaola22 — 2016-09-28 14:41:04 UTC

During my training period, before start teaching I attended a course about cultural cohesion at school. I experienced and learnt may interesting and involving activities for overcoming cultural stereotypes among students. Here we have some examples
Hello in Different Languages | This is a fun, warm-up, cross-cultural activity. The group tries to come up the word(s) for "hello" in as many different languages as possible.
The Story of My Name | Where does your name come from? Share the story of where your name comes from and what your name means. Helps to build intercultural respect and understanding.
Have You Ever? | Active, fun group activity to explore and celebrate the rich diversity of people's past experiences. Works well with large groups.

Patrizia Giorgi, Ital

patti_giorgi — 2016-09-28 14:47:58 UTC

I work often by group. trough the play I introduce the elements of the activity. they are theatre plays. I find the theatre work very useful for speak of himself without inhibitions.

Luisa Menza, Italy

menzaluisa — 2016-09-28 15:06:18 UTC

In my school we project exchanges with school partners all over the world, which is a very challenging experience both for students as a class and for their families as hosts.

Ionela Lazea, Romania

kameeliah16bis — 2016-09-28 15:18:54 UTC

In my activity I use a lot of stories, therapeutic stories and social-emotional stories to engage children and motivate them to be more tolerant and accepting of others.

mbacita — 2016-09-28 15:24:34 UTC

I believe that creating a blog on their English class, free time activities etc could be a starting point. In order to help my students I try to use as many multimedia presentations using powtoon, prezi.

Maria, Italy

ingmdg — 2016-09-28 15:39:39 UTC

In my experience pupils get always involved in projects that allow them to express their own feelings, especially those deep ones referring to their tradition. I mean, as well as they love to share their own strenght points, they feel particularly strong when called to talk about their interests and feelings which are typical of their culture. This is also why I always try to let them feel the proudness of their origins, that is always worth to share with other people so the group in the classroom lives the beautyness of his own identity. When I happened to experience the multicultural diversity in my classroom I took advantage of this by let them reflect about it in a collective approach. I suggested to project a blog where to share their new ideas and choose at the end the best idea to work at together as a classroom project. As a result they could produce poster, paper works and other kind of electronic works about the subjects they had chosen, feeling the proudness of their origins.

Elisa

mec972 — 2016-09-28 15:47:56 UTC

multimedia resources are useful to support interaction. Moreover, the teacher should propose typical topics related to the age of students to involve them .

Clapou Crina / Romania

clapou_crina — 2016-09-28 16:47:16 UTC

For smaller children in kindergarten I find that storytelling is a great way to transmit information and direct their behavior.

Kristijan Cincar

2016-09-28 16:51:04 UTC

Multimedia resources are useful to support interaction and presentation. The teacher should propose typical topics related to the age of students to involve them .

Keratso, Greece

2016-09-28 17:35:37 UTC

We teachers could develop our students' intercultural competense by:

Using innovative pedagogies like project-based or problem-based learning, personalising learning of students, making learning relevant by involving the community, playing games, watching and commenting videos, questionnaire, quiz, posters, brochures, role-playing, learning vocabulary in several languages, collaborative work, Skype-ing with students from all around the world, research on lives of their anchestors, bringing grand parents to tell their stories about their immigration, searching personalities or heroes of the world that worked for peace and opposed racism, taking part in eTwinning and Erasmus programs to show the students that there is a whole world outside the school easily approached, internet diary and blog with pictures of their travel from their country to Europe, constructing their own knowledge with digital games testing each other, playing roles in theater and working as a team, playing sports in small groups, educational tours, food-fol festivals among students from different cultural origin, activities to highlight culture, use of linguistic mediators in the class.

Eleni K, Greece

elenkonto1 — 2016-09-28 17:47:55 UTC

I really liked the activities mentioned in the video. I have also incorporated famous people from different cultures. I also use presentations of schools of other countries. This is always a topic my pupils are interested in. I also integrate cooking from different cultures and they enjoy it.

Clementina/Portugal

clemagui — 2016-09-28 18:11:46 UTC

I am a math teacher and my students are 10 to 12 years. I have developed some activities in class that constiotuem examples of activities to Develop students' intercultural competence.
It is part of the mathematics curriculum the topic proportions and curriculum of natural sciences the topic food. So I worked with the science teacher and students collected various recipes of dishes typical of the countries of origin. Then they had in mathematics, to indicate the quantities of the ingredients for 50 people (students and parents). Finally we made a small snack, where students presented their dishes and the stories of these dishes.
They made powerpoint presentations that continuously rolled in a projector to the school to see.
The students researched, involving families and released their work. It was very interesting. It is a pity that has been done only with a class at school.

Marinela,Romania

2016-09-28 18:51:18 UTC

Multimedia resources are useful for all the activities we have to knew how to put the resources in ourwork and how to involve our students.

Maddalena Autiero, Italy

2016-09-28 19:22:51 UTC

Recently I found very interesting the following video which shows that we are all foreigners !!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls

cristina, italy

cristina_casanova — 2016-09-28 19:28:05 UTC

I usually find multimedia or project based methods very useful. Sometimes more traditional pedagogies can help such as pictures, photos.

Sean, Netherlands

2016-09-28 20:31:58 UTC

I feel like giving students room to talk and teach about themselves gives for really interesting and thoughtful ways of capturing the attention of the group.

Chiara Leoni, Italy

2016-09-28 20:48:42 UTC

My students realized a book of stories, they cooperate in couples so that are the tutor and tutee of each other. The stories incorporated their culture and experiences and the process gave them the opportunity to know each other similarieties and appreciate each other differences.

Buddy, The Netherlands

2016-09-28 20:51:33 UTC

I often use videos to let pupils see how thing look like in other countries. In that way I hope that they can imagine how life is outside of their own country.

Rocco/Italy

rocco_spano_24 — 2016-09-28 20:55:55 UTC

I usually use Prezi where students put their presentations.Last year they worked in an Erasmus + and wrote really nice short stories .http://mazaralleida.blogspot.it/
I put the link to share our work. It was very interesting working in this project about the common influence between European countries, and especially with Spain and Sicily.

Carmen, Italy

carmen_telese — 2016-09-28 21:16:47 UTC

I haven't done eTwinning projects or project-based learning.
I also think that they are too difficult for my
children (6-10 years).
I often work in the group of private tutoring or
method of cooperative learning. Moreover, the lessons are always accompanied by
music, stories and images.

Anna , Italy

annascola — 2016-09-28 21:44:04 UTC

I usually use Skype for small groups of students to make short webinar and create a positive climate between them. But they can use in the classroom their mobile devices. They use cell phones to do research on the web, to carry out the on-line test, using Kahoot and a lot of APP to create storytelling (storyboard That) and trailer(iMovie).
Teaching supported by the media is very exclusive!

Laura Elia - Italy

2016-09-29 14:18:20 UTC

I love the activities mentioned in the video. I usually use the LIM multimedia programs that involve more children and more solicit their interest.

Dhurata /Albania

2016-09-29 14:44:04 UTC

I usually use onenote and sway for my learning diary.Pupils used some different tools for etwinning project :prezi,pwp,animoto,etc.

Ozan , Turkey

oznozn_08 — 2016-09-29 19:05:20 UTC

All of the techniques mentioned are useful. Especially putting yourself in someone's shoes is the best. Students can prepare a presentation about a famous but not well-known person in history, art or science. For example scientist Stephen Hawking can be a good example for a student who discriminates the religions. Writer Sırrı Süreyya Önder, whose accent is southeastern, can be good for a student who makes jokes about southeastern accent etc. By This way the students may be more familiar with what they make jokes about or discriminate.

Özgü Öztürk, Istanbul

ozguozturkk — 2016-09-30 15:53:03 UTC

my students love real stories from other nationalities.

Alessandra Pavese, Italy

2016-10-01 13:46:57 UTC

I often use videos to let students to share their experiences.

Zenaida, Romania

zenaida_ieremie — 2016-10-01 18:11:13 UTC

I think that there are a lot of methods that can be used to develop students' intercultural competence. In my opinion, the most useful one is represented by projects in which my students can interact with others from different countries. In this way, they are exposed to other cultures, they learn interesting things about people all over the world by discussing with them via Skype about their traditions, their food or even by visiting them. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to participate in a similar project with students from a different country, but I had a partnership with some other schools from Romania and I noticed that my students really benefited from this in terms of personal development.

Leo,Italy

2016-10-01 19:48:26 UTC

Children like being understand.

Maya, Bulgaria

maia_nic58 — 2016-10-01 22:44:50 UTC

I think that participating in international projects contribute for developing students`intercultural competence. In this way they can learn interesting facts aboutpeople all over the world and more specificaly about their tradition. Luckily our school had a chance to participate in similar project. It name was "Music and Dance- our common language."

Maria Filippa- Italy

2016-10-01 23:57:11 UTC

My task based learning is pften linked to ewinning projects.

Lorella Schettino, Italy

lorella_schettino — 2016-10-02 10:44:26 UTC

I also use the stories of each of my students than its country of origin as a great resource for the classroom. All so we open our points of view and killing the walls of mistrust.

Maria, Italy

dimang_mat13 — 2016-10-02 14:28:16 UTC

Despoina From Greece

despoina_prapa — 2016-10-02 14:54:59 UTC

Little kids love role playing in my courses.There's an extremely large range of activities to use.Let's put an example..."Be your parent".In this activity children asked to find info(place, clothes,food) for their parents 'past life in their country. Then,children have to act like their parents in class. at the end of presentations we discuss about similarities or differencies.
Concerning Alicia's and Erica's tips, i totally agree with all of them and i would like to use google earth and scratchbook as a part of students' learning diary!Thank u!

Rossella, Italy

rossy2305 — 2016-10-02 16:19:03 UTC

I often try to start from the prior knowledge and the stories of my students than its country of origin to build with them an interactive lesson. Use their experiences and observations as a great resource for the classroom and to feed their curiosity. I believe that the most important thing that you should learn in school is to meet and talk civilly. To do this very often I suggest role playing or coperative learning.

Agapi, Greece

a_chouzouraki — 2016-10-02 21:01:31 UTC

A basic principle in both Erika's and Alicia's presentations is experiential learning! In the subjects I teach (civics, law) practicality is an asset and I always try to connect theory to real life. Different laws for example in different countries can hugely contribute in intercultural understanding!

Liliya Balanyuk (UK)

Liliya_B — 2016-10-02 21:06:50 UTC

Reflecting on how I utilise the knowledge gained on completion of the 1st module of this course and learning about the ways of developing students' intercultural competence, I'd like to say that I've already started applying some of the techniques. For instance, when working on superlative forms of the adjectives last week, I asked my students to use the skill to compose several sentences to tell about their native countries. They came up with really great sentences about the largest cities, the longest rivers, the most famous singers, the most popular sports, etc. I teach a very diverse group of students, so it was really interesting for all of us to find out all sorts of things about a range of different countries. The thing that I liked most of all was my students' engagement and willingness to take part in the activity. It's a shame I didn't think of encouraging them to write the sentences down in order to create a collaborative display.

As for a longer project, I like the idea of establishing a ritual of sharing and reflecting upon traditions in different cultures. I'm considering starting each session with something like "what this day/week means to people from my background" where the students will have 10-15 minutes to tell the class if there have been any meaningful date for their families / countries / religious community, etc.

Edi, italy

2016-10-05 08:30:52 UTC

I sometimes use videos about different countries' cultures and facts. This can be a way to develop knowledge of other backgrounds and the first step to the acceptance of different beliefs and ways of living in other countries.

angela de vito from naples

2016-10-09 19:08:07 UTC

during my lesson both foreign languages and antropological subjects I try to mix classical lesson to real life so everybody can say their experience

Elisa, Italy

2016-10-18 16:54:53 UTC

Elisa, Italy

2016-10-18 17:00:49 UTC

sabrina_poli — 2016-10-19 12:52:36 UTC

sabrina Italy
a very interesting video... I generally use LIM to involve my students

Dhurata ,Albania

2016-11-02 19:07:01 UTC

Wonderful course.

Iuliana,Romania Multimedia resources are useful for all the activities we have to knew how to put the resources in ourwork and how to involve our students.

2016-11-06 09:11:18 UTC

Lena Rossiou, Greece

etwinambassadorsthess — 2016-11-28 16:08:12 UTC

In the class with migrants I have not applied yet Alicia's and Erika's ideas.. i will do it soon!
But I did is I used photostory3 and I asked them to express their feeling for their home country/village with 3-5 photos, a music of their preference and words in their language translate in english as well...
The results were really unexpected...
Students from Syria described with photos of PAST and PRESENT and students from Iraq did not want to remember...

Özde

2017-01-04 20:02:14 UTC

Özdemir Bilgen

2017-01-04 20:02:15 UTC

Turkey
perfect cours

Nicoleta, Romania

nnicco67 — 2017-03-06 21:24:34 UTC

The eTwinning is a very interesting activity and I think my students would love it.

Adela Gabriela Muresan, Romania

muresan_gabriela_adela — 2017-10-29 10:51:37 UTC

Interesting course. I teach primary education, so it is easy for me to develop projects about multicultural diversity.

2017-11-17 22:31:42 UTC

Massimiliano, Italy

Professor_Massimiliano — 2019-01-14 15:10:05 UTC

Very interesting activity for my class and me

2020-08-30 03:08:08 UTC

mama

Grusca Dumitru Travelling around the world.

cristina82ro — 2022-01-16 12:19:33 UTC

Dear Students describe different types of transport and speak about the advantages and disadvantages some of them.