Etwinning

End stereotypes "Sous le ciel de la compréhension"

Title: Sous le ciel de la compréhension

Educational stage: Further Secondary Education

Subject: Interdisciplinary

This project, which received the Special French Category award in the eTwinning 2010 European Awards, came up from the participants' idea that European students, even if we are all living under the same sky, know very little about each other.

In order to eliminate this stereotype, students from the Istituto Paolini Cassiano school (Italy) and the Zespól Szkól Tekstylno-Handlowych school (Poland) have dealt with this project. They have become immersed in some historical and cultural aspects of their partners' lives and have reached the conclusion that understanding and knowledge can end all stereotypes and increase tolerance. All this comes under the sky of French language, which has been the common link reinforcing communication.

With a great amount of originality, students have launched the stars of their work into space: the pictorial dictionary of idiomatic expressions in French, Polish and Italian, the exchange of information about the different celebrations and festivities in each country, the research about a historical character in each region, an interview about eating habits and the making of video-recipes, the logo-contest, etc.

But, without a doubt, the greatest star is the comparative dictionary of Polish and Italian gestures.  

This document, which comes as a result of a perfect collaboration, shows through images and videos of the students how body language and gestures play an important role in communication and are key to understand the differences between cultures. It is fun to see that there are identical gestures in both countries, others that are the same but have different meanings and others that are completely different. Look at all these people!, Calm down! or I am hungry are not expressed using the same movements in Italy or in Poland, and can also be different in the rest of Europe.

This excellent twinning has contributed to increase participants' competence in ICTs: tools like Skype or email for communication between teachers and students, image, sound and video edition programmes, TwinSpace and the Project Diary are some of the most popular ones.

On the other hand, the project has been present in various events taking place in the corresponding twinned cities: French-speaking Day and the International French Week in Poland, as well as the Ímola Carnival in Italy.

Link:

Public TwinSpace (former TwinSpace platform)