Good foreign language skills, particularly English, the most important international language of conversation, are in demand in the age of globalisation. Whether in Lithuania, Portugal or Switzerland, teachers of English find themselves facing similar challenges everywhere. What does vary, however, are the approaches they choose to solve the problems. Good enough reason to look over the shoulders of European teacher colleagues while they are teaching. But what is the best way of finding suitable partner schools for this kind of project?


With the financial support of Movetia, one teacher of English travelled to Lithuania to visit two potential partner schools. The initial contact to the partner teachers in the Baltic States came about through the partner search facility of the European platform School Education Gateway. In order to plan a concrete exchange project between teachers and to make sure that, through reciprocal teaching observation periods, valuable learning outcomes can be achieved for all participating schools, the teacher from Nyon organised a preparatory (advance planning) visit to Vilnius and Klaipeda from 2nd-6th October 2017.

“The pedagogical exchange about experiences and innovative school projects is especially valuable,” sums up Felix Allender. This personal contact really made it possible to develop future projects in a participatory way and to widen their own network.

As luck would have it, Allender was able to establish contact there with a headmistress in Portugal, with whom he could definitely imagine a joint project. “We immediately found common ground regarding our expectations of an exchange project, which is an important basic precondition for working together,” according to the English teacher. The preparatory visit was worthwhile, in his view, because through it he was able to find experienced project partners and get an even clearer idea of the added value of international projects.

Are you interested in a teaching observation period at Lithuanian partner schools at upper secondary level? The schools visited in Klaipeda and Vilnius are still looking for Swiss project partners.

Contact

Director Upper Secondary Level
Mrs Rasa Mašurinienė

direktore@varpogimnazija.lt 
(Conversational language English)