O Projecto/The Project

BREVE DESCRIÇÃO DO PROJECTO:

Módulo I: “Quem somos?”
-Apresentações em powerpoint sobre as regiões, escolas e turmas intervenientes:
“A nossa Escola” e “A nossa turma”; “A nossa terra”
- Contactos entre escolas parceiras;
- Contactos com as comunidades local (entidades oficiais, grupos culturais/ recreativos).

Módulo II: “Artes, ofícios e ócios”
-Trabalho de pesquisa no âmbito das seguintes temáticas:
“Ofícios Artesanais”, “Jogos, Brinquedos e Brincadeiras Tradicionais” e “Tradições e Rituais”;
-construção de adereços: caracterização, fatos (saltimbancos), trajes (ofícios tradicionais e rituais), materiais (jogos,etc);
- preparação da banda sonora;
- operacionalização das apresentações parcelares e finais do Grupo de Saltimbancos (quadros alusivos aos ofícios tradicionais e rituais, jogos tradicionais);

Módulo III:
-Demonstração de danças, jogos e brincadeiras ancestrais;
-respectivas semelhanças / diferenças entre as duas culturas.

Módulo IV: “Intercâmbios culturais”
- Apresentações cénicas nos encontros entre escolas:
IES Flix ; Lousã e numa localidade equidistante.

PROJECT DETAILS:

AIMS: Promote cooperation and communication across borders, promote the concept of European citizenship; enrich the students’ «European Identity»; broaden their knowledge of other European countries and cultures; preserve the cultural heritage of the regions involved; compare traditions of both countries/regions; exchange views on different cross-curricular topics; improve the students’ ICT skills and communicative skills in English and provide a real purpose for using English and ICT.

Participant students: 3 Portuguese classes (around 58 students, aged 14-15, 8 students are already 16 years old) and 3 Spanish classes (around 48 students).

Topics: “Our countries and hometowns”; “Our Schools”; “Tradition and Modernity”; “Legends and Dances”; “Traditional Occupations”; “ Traditional games and Toys/ How children used to play”; “The Fauna and Flora of 2 different regions (a Mediterranean and an Atlantic zone)” and other cross curricular topics.

Activities: The Project started in 2008 - students introduced themselves and exchanged emails and PowerPoint presentations about their schools and their hometowns. They also started to do research work on the topics “Legends and Dances”; “Traditional Occupations”; “Traditional games and Toys/ How children used to play”. Meanwhile, a club called “Saltimbancos” (group of acrobats/ minstrels) was created in the Portuguese school. Parents, teachers and students organised a school trip to Spain and the groups met in May 2008 in Flix, where the group “Saltimbancos” acted for the first time. They showed traditional dances, music and games of their region. During this visit both groups of students had the opportunity to teach their partners how to play different games.
In March 2009 the Spanish group visited Lousã and students performed several acrobatics together and played traditional games; a traditional dinner was served and a cultural event was provided for the local community with the participation of the Portuguese Group “Saltimbancos” and the Spanish Group “Los Esgambiris” - again Tradition and Modernity were connected.
In 2009 the group “Saltimbancos” had several performances in cultural events in Lousã and Coimbra, consequently it had to adapt to different and new challenges, either showing several acrobatics and dances or even small sketches. When the school year 2009/2010 started new members joined in this club and older students are now teaching younger ones. This year, despite some financial difficulties, both schools are working together, in order to accomplish a final meeting, according to the Project Plan.
On the other hand, the project enables students to improve their ICT skills, as they produced and are still producing different materials, such as PowerPoint presentations, leaflets, logos, MP3 files, photo galleries, a DVD about the school trips and a blog, so the students use different tools/software such as PowerPoint, publisher, word, paint, Photoshop, moviemaker, according to their own ideas, tastes and suggestions, in order to produce attractive materials about the topics of the project.
As a conclusion, modern tools are being used to preserve traditions, as they enable a better understanding of the present. By comparing the traditions of two neighbour countries, students can broaden their identity as people and European citizens.