Developing English through ARt-oriented activities

Our project was aimed at creating a new curricula to develop students’ language competences through Art-oriented activities in an ICT-based environment. When choosing these major thematic fields we took into account the following realities:-learning a foreign language is absolutely necessary for a successful integration into the open labour market and for a complete personal and professional development -classes can sometimes fall into routine, that’s why using Art as a means for creating a more enjoyable learning environment could help students become more enthusiastic and motivated to develop language competences in a non-classical manner, by experiential learning and educational games. The project was implemented by collaborative working of 9 schools from all over Europe: 3 high-schools focused on Arts which guided the Art related activities (Romania1, England and Portugal), 4 elementary schools with English and Arts expertise at their level which contributed to the creation of the Art-based English teaching activities (Cyprus, Croatia, Slovenia and Turkey) and 2 Computer Science high-schools in charge with transferring the teaching activities into the digital book (Spain and Romania2).The target groups was made of students aged 6 to 18, according to each partner school’s type.The project lasted for 24 months: September 2015 – August 2017.From October 2015 till March 2017 we created the course and its curricula which includes the rationale, general and specific competences with examples of learning activities, learning contents, and evaluation tools. Attached to the theoretical part of the curricula we created a teacher's guide with examples of lessons as methodological suggestions for English classes taught through Art-oriented activities. It contains 8 modules, one for each month of the school year, consisting of various learning topics which cover different areas of interest/ knowledge connected with everyday life/ human activities/ natural environment and/or with Arts. Starting from these topics, each partner school made 4 lesson plans for English classes which can be taught through Art-oriented activities. Each lesson includes English, Art and ICT tasks. According to their own school type, each partner suggested 4 lessons for either primary, lower secondary or high-school students, respectively. There are 96 lesson plans totally which can serve as support for local project activities (classes held in each partner school) and short-term students exchanges. From April 2017 till May 2017 we finalized the book in paper format, which includes QR codes which lead to short video of each lesson and to teaching resources used and/ or created for these lessons. Thus, these resources can be freely accessed and used by any teacher who would need them in his/ her daily teaching activity. It also displays examples of augmented reality activities which can be read both in the classical way and by using a device (smartphone, tablet) having installed Aurasma. There were 4 short-term students exchanges and 4 teaching activities aimed at trying out the course curricula created at local level. For a good project management and implementation we organized 3 transnational project meetings.Among project results, we can mention:-a new website .eu domain which contains the course curricula, project information and an e-learning platform-the course curricula on paper and in its digital version which will be freely available and openly licensed for downloading from our e-learning platform for anyone interested in using it as teaching aid. The book was printed in several copies so that each partner school's library could have it. Other books can be offered to schools on different occasions. Thus, schools from the neighbourhood can benefit from the promotion of this innovative project product which can be used during English classes for both primary and secondary education.Impact:-Students enhanced their English competences and digital skills, creativity, team working skills, self-confidence.-Teachers broadened their horizons and exchange information on different school systems and developed their teaching competence, foreign languages abilities, social, managerial and ICT competence-Participant schools increased their visibility and improved their own image in the eyes of the local community-The local community became internationally known and had the possibility to get in contact with institutions from foreign countries with which they can develop future partnershipsMonitoring and evaluation was done permanently. As evaluation tools we used questionnaires, periodical reports.