Partners and projects
You can develop the European or international dimension in your school in partnerships and projects, bringing your pupils into contact with their counterparts in the countries of Europe and beyond.At the foot of this page you will find a link to a pdf document listing both the sites detailed here and others of use for finding partners and getting involved in projects.
Getting involved
The British Council: Comenius
Comenius is part of the European Lifelong Learning Programme and provides opportunities for schools and colleges to introduce or strengthen the European dimension in their curriculum. The British Council Comenius pages give full details and help you to find a partner school.
The Global Gateway
A free resource for finding partners worldwide. Not all partnerships or projects relate to modern languages or ICT, but it is worth investigating the potential for your school. You will find lots of ideas related to the international dimension and the rest is up to you!
eLanguages
A free-to-use online collaborative programme supported by the British Council, enabling you to work in partnership with other teachers internationally, share authentic resources and create reusable curriculum-relevant projects. The eLanguages site is available in many languages including the world's 10 most popular languages.
E-Twinning
E-twinning, managed in the UK by the British Council, aims to use ICT to bring schools together in e-partnerships, enabling pupils to share ideas, collaborate on projects and learn about each others' cultures, while enhancing their ICT skills. For pupils of foreign languages, it offers great possibilities for developing language competence in a stimulating way
Projects and collaborative activities
The European Day of Languages
The European Day of Languages, supported by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, is held on September 26 each year. Pupils across the continent engage in activities to promote language learning and language diversity. Contact your national representative, called 'National Relays', on the EDL website.
The European Award for Languages
The European Award for Languages promotes innovative and effective learning of modern languages. It is supported by the European Commission and by CILT, the National Centre for Languages in the UK. Projects must be based on a language other than English and must have an international dimension. One of the thematic strands of the initiative is TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning). You can consult projects under this strand at the EU European Label database.
eTandemEuropa
Learners use new technologies to work with a native speaker partner overseas to improve their target language.
JapanUK Live
A bilingual site which helps pupils to exchange information, ideas, photos and sound files.
ePals
Examples of projects are available at this site. There are resources in several languages. They are not geared specifically to modern languages, but they can give you good ideas.
Global Leap
Video conferencing in the UK and around the world. There are great opportunities to bring foreign language learning alive in face-to-face contact with partner schools anywhere in the world.
Partners and Projects (pdf, 137kb)
