1. DESCRIPTION OF THE SUCCESS CASE

1.1 Scope of the initiative

The initiative is undertaken at local level.

Target group: secondary (grammar school) students from grade 8-12 (13-18 years)

The project involves cooperation with two postgraduate students of Freie Universität Berlin who have functioned as project launchers.

The initiative involves support for and establishment of a partnership with a comprehensive school in Guatemala.

An exchange programme for teachers and students has been started.

 

1.2  Range of languages studied

Covered language(s): Spanish and (to a very small degree) indigenous Maya languages.

 

1.3  Learning outcomes

A ‘real’ motivation for students to learn Spanish has been achieved by creating anauthentic communicative demand.

The language learning process is closely connected to other, more general learning
processes like

• project-based cooperation by students from different age-groups
• self-organisation,
• planning fund-raising activities,
• negotiating with project supporters.
• achieving intercultural awareness (•
• to be measured by qualitive methods, still
• in progress)

 

1.4  Practical realisation

Specific structure of the initiative: a group of teachers plus postgraduate students;the initiative is not officially controlled.

Project launched by 2 university students (Freie Universität Berlin) who were looking
for school contact in order to carry out a humanitarian help initiative.

Project aim: to organize support for a school in Santiago de Atitlán (Guatemala),  destroyed by a natural disaster (landslide) in October 2005.
The project is outside the official curriculum. There are, however, many points of contact which allow to relate it to the standard language classes on different levels.

Project partners:

• the destroyed school which has become one official partner school of Friedrich Ebert’s
• Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and several foundations as finance-and knowledge-oriented supporters for the project (e.g.) to cover travel costs
• Local venues where benefit performances have been carried out

Realisation phases:

2006-spring 2007:

• Project group gets to know the issue, starts fund-raising activities
  Organisation of supportive Spanish classes for students who do not learn the language in one of our official language classes.

July/August 2007:

• a group of 2 teachers and about 10 students from our school travel to Guatemala to hand over a donation of several thousands of Euro.
• during that time they live in the students’ families who in their majority have an indigenous background.

September 2007-spring 2008:

several other fund-raising activities are carried out.

22 May – 7 June 2008:

planned return visit by Guatemaltecan teachers and students to Berlin:

• The visitors, who in their great majority have never been out of their hometown will be living in German-speaking families which provides our students with excellent opportunities for close contacts with representative of a culture unknown to them.
• The visitors will be brought together with Spanish-learners of different ages from our school who do not belong to the project group.
• A closer connection of the project work to the official Spanish curriculum is intended.

2. BACKGROUND TO THE INITIATIVE

2.1 Context

The project was proposed to us by two postgraduate university students who function as project-launchers. They had contact to the partner school and were looking for support by secondary students to carry out the humanitarian project.

Our interest in the initiative is based on the conviction that it provides our students with a natural, ‘content’-based motivation for their learning activities. It helps to create real communicative needs and thus to make the Spanish language become a part of the students’ life outside the regular language class-room.

Furthermore, it goes together with other reform projects carried out at our school which aim at overcoming the strict borders between school subjects. In this case, teachers of Spanish Language and Political Science have started a closer cooperation.

 

2.2 Strategic goals of the initiative

• Providing a natural-content-based motivation for learning Spanish
• Bringing more students to learn the Spanish language
• Development of pupils’ autonomy with a view to lifelong language learning.
• Improving the international network of our school on a global scale
• Development of general communicative skills in the L2
• Development of specific communicative skills related to the project: letter writing,
  oral and written translation, making presentations
• Creating awareness of the linguistic diversity in South American through confrontation with an
  Indigenous language and the role of Spanish as a lingua franca
• Improving Cultural openness

3. SUCCESS INDICATORS

A new interest in the Spanish language has been created also in students with no focus on language learning.

Optional demand-based Spanish courses for group members have been asked for and carried out.

The initiative has proved its sustainability by leaving the inner circle of the project group and reaching wider circles of our student population. The next highlight will be the forthcoming return visit by our Guatemaltecan partner school. On this occasion
several meetings between the guests and our regular Spanish learning classes are planned.

4. SUCCESS FACTORS

The following factors can be seen as decisive ones for the success of the initiative:

• Intensive, idealistic implication by staff members and postgraduate university students
• Strong institutional support for the language initiative especially in financial questions, e.g.) funding costs for the travel of our project group and the project partners on their return visit
• Students are brought into a practical contact with the language
• Language-learning motivation has been successfully boosted by creating ‘real’ communicative needs through a project that has resulted fascinating for the students.
• The continuity of the initiative.

5. LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

In Germany, the learning of an L2 is obligatory. Obviously, this fact can be considered one keystone for the development of multilingual competences. However, experience shows that only part of the students reaches the competence theoretically aimed for in curricula, as many fail to connect the L2 to their personal life.

Our initiative is a clear example of the value and effectiveness of project-based learning programmes incorporating the L2-learning into a wider, interdisciplinary context which provides real communicative demands and thus considerably enhances the students’ motivation for learning an L2.