Case Studies

Recently, the map of the Spanish population has changed considerably due to the amount of immigrants that have arrived to the Iberian Peninsula in the last decade. Due to the lack of an immigration tradition in Spain, the government initiatives are scarce, and in general terms, it is the individual effort of the teaching community along country the one helping to include this fragment of population during formal education.

In general terms, this cross-curricular project illustrates how to exploit a cultural topic for the teaching/learning of languages, which serve as a motivation enhancer for teachers and students. Among other material, maps were created to follow the stages of the Tour to learn about geography, monuments, cultural curiosities, traditions and food. All this was carried out through the use of ICT and The Electronic European Portfolio (e-PEL).

The target group was students of Secondary Education. Usually, the teaching and educational community tries to enhance immigrant’s foreign languages to ease integration, but for this time, were the immigrant students the ones who shared not only their mother tongue but also their cultural background as a way to integrate in their community and help others learn with their background using Le toured France as the excuse.

- This project has provided didactic material considering the worrying lack of multicultural projects in a new multicultural society
- This project has overcome cultural barriers between immigrant and national students in a formal education context
- This project has fruitfully involved foreign students to promote their mother tongue and culture.
- This project has successfully provided creative and innovative topics to make language classes more appealing
- This project has promoted the utilization of ICTs to sponsor integration and multiculturalism
- The continuous evaluation of this project has shown that students learn faster when they are taught using language and culture together and motivating topics as Le tour de France

Being part of a multidisciplinary working group that is engaged in implementing the European portfolio in their high school, the coordinators of the group considered the Label as great sponsor of their effort.

This project has been shared with the rest of the local and state teaching community. The activities has been disseminated via a blog: http://frances-augustobriga.blogspot.com.es/

The award has been announced in the state main newspapers, and for this diffusion has not only motivated the coordinators of the project but also the rest of the teaching community that has seen how effort is always awarded. In other words, motivation to keep working and generating material to enhance teaching and learning specially to the immigrant community that has a lot to offer.

Being part of a European country, the main recommendation is working and collaborating in a multidisciplinary local working group where different approaches and perspectives can be shown. This local group should be in contact with other groups, institution and initiatives along Europe.

The project is consistent with the current policies because it covers language-related needs of the various linguistic groups and fostering communication between them and the host community. Specifically, it helps integrate the French speaking immigrant students within the Spanish speaking community via French, its culture, sports and ICTS.

The project is consistent with the current policies because it helps to integrate foreign students come to local communities with limited proficiency in the national or regional language. In this project the French speaking immigrant community helps locals to learn French while they get integrated. Communities need to help these groups access services and ensure their smooth integration in the life of their neighborhoods. This can be achieved by organizing activities like this one that promote the language and culture of the various communities.