International meetings | Lithuania | 20-24 January, 2020

The aims are to use innovative methods that make the process a fun learning experience for the students at detecting the values through the books they have read. The pupils revised their in-built feelings like responsibility, success, self-respect and self-esteem via books through innovative teaching methods. They read Lithuanian books and did cross-cultural activities. Within the context of this study, our students discovered the virtues of Lithuanian nation by examining its work of literature and had the chance to increase their understanding of the Lithuanian culture.

1st day – welcome meeting at Mazeikiai Merkelis Rackauskas Gymnasium. Introduction of the school premises. A meeting with local authorities and reporters from the local newspaper. A Lithuanian language lesson for the participants of the project.Geography and history lesson about Lithuania, the purpose and importance of the project. In the Mazeikiai museum an educational workshop “Making leather bookmarks”. A students’ ice-breaking party at school.

2nd day- „Morning circle“. Watching a movie „The Devil’s Bride“ based on the book „Whitehorn Windmill“ by K.Boruta. A presentation of a historical background of „Whitehorn Windmill“. Writing a joint letter to the author in mixed groups of all nationalities. The acquaintance with the educational organisations in Mazeikiai. Presentations of Lithuanian, Turkish, Latvian and Spanish schools and their home towns.

3rd day – Cultural trip to Vilnius. (the Old Town of Vilnius, Gediminas Castle, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, visiting some places described in K.Sabaliauskaite’s short stories “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilna”).

4th day – “Morning circle”. Students’ group work on the project issues – “Treasure hunt”. In the teams of mixed nationalities students create three different products, which is the material for the front newspaper page: 1.Text creation. 2. Comics. 2. Act/ Performance. A trip to Plateliai visiting the Cold War Museum (the former underground missile base). Cheese “Džiugas” tasting workshop in Cheese “Džiugas” House, Telšiai and an interactive game in Telšiai Museum.

5th day – Discussion “The Value of a Book in a Globalizing World”. Creating the front page of a newspaper. Evaluation of the first short-exchange meeting using padlet.com and mentemeter.com. A theatralised and entertaining workshop “A Path of Bread on our Tables ” – participation in the process of making bread; tasting traditional Lithuanian food, games and dances with the live band. Farewell speeches and the awards with the certificates of attendance.

The participants learnt different approaches of analyzing the books they had read, found and discussed the values they noticed in the life of past generations and compared them with the life now. The visits to the cultural and historical places, close contacts with the town community and with the families the partner students lived in gave a better insight of the local culture, the history behind certain behaviors and values.

For students it was a unique chance to increase their knowledge about Lithuania, raise their awareness, understanding, tolerance and respect of cultural and social differences between the participants, enlarge their foreign language competences and motivation in language learning, build up a higher level of skills such as, problem solving, decision making, cooperation, organizational, literacy, creativity through reading.

For teachers it was a great chance to cooperate with the teachers from the other countries, to improve their pedagogical skills by sharing teaching methods, good practices and ideas that enriched their pedagogical aspects as the teachers gave the lessons to the participants and involved the project participants in the daily activities of this school community.

For the participants and the school community it was an important experience to develop links with other European schools, to get to know about different educational systems and approaches.

For parents and general public it was a great opportunity to find out more about European Union, European projects, to gain new experience by hosting international pupils and to find out more about various cultures in Europe.

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