TRADES OF THE FUTURE

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        All the participants schools attend an evaluation meeting celebrated in Faenza, Italy, on Tuesday 9th of November 2021. This meeting takes part included in the C4 activity “Short term teachers meeting and training event”. During this meeting teachers discuss the main elements to be evaluated.

       Evaluation is divided in two parts, on the one hand, we reflect on the project development and, on the other hand, we focus on the different degree of achievement of the objected settled at the beginning of our project.

       Before proceeding to present the conclusions obtained in the different sections it is mandatory to mention that our project has been deeply affected by sanitary situation stem from Covid-19. As a result, project activities were interrupted for one school year since situation in the different schools was unique and often complicated the activities development.  The main consequence derived from this inconvenience is that students who started taking part in the project are not in primary school any more as they moved to secondary education and therefore the project can not be finished with the same students who started it. For this reason, some of the evaluated items are meaningless and not as illustrative as they should be.

In what follows, common conclusions will be described.

 

1. Project development:

   1. Diffusion numbers

   2. Average mark of the appropriateness/quality of the following issues according to the answers of the different school teachers.  (being 1-poor, 2-low, 3-moderate, 4-good, 5-excellent)

2. Objective achievement:​

   1. Digital competence.​

   2. Communicative competence

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1. PROJECT DEVELOPMENT:

   1. 1 Diffusion numbers:

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       Participants teachers consider numbers are good taking into account the covid break. Nevertheless, we also aware that we must improve diffusion and dissemination in this second part of our project. We must widen our audience among other schools, teachers and parents. One of the strengths in dissemination is the impact of our project on newspapers, radio and TV as well as local dignitaries who meet us in the different transnational visits such as town mayors and teaching councilors in the different cities. More than thirty reports and articles have been published in different webpages, magazines, local newspapers and e-copies and tv and radio interviews.

 

       One of the weaknesses in dissemination is the number of Instagram followers and blog visits. We have noticed that posts, visits and interactions increase during students mobilities but it remains in stand by the rest of the time. Therefore, we should also share other activities done at schools which are as important as mobilities themselves.

 

    In order to improve diffusion and reach a bigger audience we intend to share our different communication channels with other local schools, teachers and parents to present our Erasmus experience and encourage them to take part in European projects that enrich lives and open minds. We also intend to create an Erasmus corner in the different schools to share our work within our school community. Finally, we propose to deliver Erasmus merchandising products among parents and students such as folders, pens, schoolbags, etc.

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        1.2. Average mark of the appropriateness/quality of the following issues according to the answers of the different school teachers.  (being 1-poor, 2-low, 3-moderate, 4-good, 5-excellent)

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 2. OBJECTIVE ACHIEVEMENT:​

2.1. Digital Competence

We originally planned to repeat the initial evaluation we made at the beginning of this project using SELFIE tool in order to check progress in teachers’ and students’ digital abilities. We finally did not repeat SELFIE intermediate evaluation. Due to the schools closure derived from the sanitary situation many of the activities included in our project had been postponed, some of the students who started taking part in it are now in secondary school and, besides, teachers and students have improved their digital competence as a consequence of remote teaching. Therefore, the results we would have obtained from it would have not been fully achieved thanks to the development of our project itself. For these reasons we did not find relevant the results we might have obtained from this digital competence evaluation at this point of the project. We agree to evaluate digital abilities at the end of it as a part of the final evaluation.

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2.2. Communicative Competence

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In a similar way, we did not evaluate communicative competence as we intended to. We developed two different types of evaluations. A quantitative one, based on comparing the average marks obtained by students in the foreign language subject, and a qualitative one, based on students’ interaction and motivation towards their European partners.

Quantitative evaluation has not been done since students’ marks, not only in English language but in all the subjects, have been significantly affected by schools closures and remote learning during the pandemic as educative situation has deeply changed during this last school year. Therefore, we consider there have been many external factors affecting students’ academic marks not only the development of our project.

 

Regarding qualitative evaluation, we discussed on how some of the students who took part in the different exchanges still keep in touch with each other. Despite they already left primary school and they are not part of this project any more, they keep talking to each other through social networks. We consider this really positive as it highly fulfills the main Erasmus objective which is creating connections among European students, opening minds and breaking boundaries. Besides, students now realize the real purpose of learning a foreign language as a communicative tool. In many teaching-learning activities they use English among them just to “practice” but they use English with their European colleagues to “communicate”.

 

Motivation among students has also increased along the project exchanges and activities. They behaved reserved and shy at the beginning but more willing to participate as months go by. They also try harder to link words and sentences, to understand and make themselves understood. Also for our English speaking partner at The Beacon motivation towards foreign languages has increased and they learn Spanish and French at school.

 

Interaction with European partners has been limited due to the pandemic. However, there is a genuine excitement for the opportunities to retake Trades of the future activities.

 

          Before finishing, it is also worth to mention that multicultural awareness and children’s social skills has increased significantly. This impact was seen beyond the children directly involved in the mobilities. We have also fostered inclusion an students’ approach to other cultures. Students are more empathetic with people different from them and started to help schoolmates with difficulties or late entries migrant colleagues.

 

 

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