Bräuche und Traditionen

The project Customs and Traditions originated thanks to the interest of the participating countries to learn more about their neighbours in Europe. We chose German as the language of the communication because we wanted to support our students in learning German and motivate them to continue in their further learning.We wanted to find out what makes us same and what makes us different. In our project meetings we discussed the most important holidays of all European countries which cooperated in the project especially Easter and Christmas. We made Christmas and Easter workshops. We exchanged the recipes of traditional dishes. Students became familiar with the other European countries that took part on the project. Together we created an international cookbook, a dictionary in 5 -languages and a calendar. We investigated the regional customs and we used the information in PowerPoint presentations and photographs. The results of our work were published on the internet.The project involved four schools. The coordinator was Základní škola a gymnázium Vítkov, příspěvková organizace - Czech Republic. Partner schools were GIMNAZJUM NR 1 IM. OBRONCOW POCZTY POLSKIEJ W GDANSKU - Poland, Constantinum Nevelési-Oktatási Intézmény - Hungary, GIMNAZJUM nr 1 im. 74 Górnoslaskiego Pulku Piechoty w Lublincu - Poland.At the beginning of the project we developed a plan. There was a frame of time activities. 110 people contributed on the project, including 14 teachers and 96 pupils.At the first project meeting, we advanced to exact timetable of our activities. We communicated through the emails, mobiles or Facebook. The coordinator informed the partners about results of our project. The pupils understood the importance of studying not only English language, but also German and other European languages, and are now much more motivated to study German as a second foreign language, because they collaborated with the peers with whom they spoke German. The initial fear of not being able to understand each other was soon replaced by joy in how quickly German-language communication skills were acquired. Pupils learned a lot of information about customs and traditions in their regions when working on the project. It has been achieved that the young people have become aware of their own identity, which certainly has strengthened their national self-esteem, but at the same time they have recognized that even close countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary have their specificities to be respected, which certainly leads to the tolerance of other customs, and that is the key to Europe today.