5th student exchange in Hungary

The 5^th student exchange took part in Hungary with the participation of 23 guest students and 11 teachers. Students spent five days together with their peers and stayed at Hungarian host families to get acquainted with Hungarian culture and lifestyle.

The main topic of the meeting was Arts and Crafts, so activities were mainly centred around these themes.

Prior to the meeting students had carried out a research related to famous local and national artists and made an interview with a local contemporary artist. During the meeting they presented their findings in the form of ppt presentations and films. During the week students worked in international groups and carried out multi-disciplinary activities that were based on the national art pieces selected by partner countries. They attended drama and debate workshops where they made preparations for the formal debate and the small scenes they presented on the final day. Both the debate and the drama performances were very successful thanks to students’ great collaboration and diligent preparations during the workshops. The debate was of exceptionally high standard, which showed that this activity has become an integral part of the project. Besides workshops, students attended English lessons that were about Art using CLIL materials elaborated during the project. Teachers were also invited to take part in the lessons to share good practices and useful tools. A lesson of Hungarian language was also organised where all the guests could acquire the very basics of the Hungarian language, mostly greetings, introductions, numbers and expressions for shopping.

Several activities were organised with a view to getting to know each other’s culture and taking part in joint art-related activities. During the first evening an international game night was held where students took part in traditional and modern games. Every partner collected and demonstrated some traditional national games and activities and taught them to their peers. An art afternoon was also held in our school where several art workshops were organised, which were conducted by local artists and Matrica museum. Students took part in Smithery, Spinning and Sewing workshops, and during a Painting session they jointly created their own piece of art. They also created some witty memes using their national art pieces as basis. All these activities were very informative and helped participants to get a first-hand experience in creating art and traditional handicrafts. All these activities had a huge team-building effect and ensured the good cooperation among partners.

All participants took part in a number of cultural visits both in Százhalombatta and in other places in Hungary. With a close collaboration with the local library students took part in some mini-project activities during which they got acquainted with the history of our town in the local Archives and working in multi-national teams they needed to collect information of famous figures that contributed to the fight for human rights.

During the meeting we tried to ensure that all participants get to know the past and presence of the town of Százhalombatta. We paid a visit to the local Matrica museum where a guided tour was organised to explore the history of the settlement through exhibits. It was followed by an interactive game that aimed at testing and application targeted at students. After the field trip students took part in an interactive scavenger hunt in the town where they needed to look for places of historical and cultural interest and needed to solve some activities and challenges.

A field trip to the National Museum of Fine Arts was also organised, where besides an informative guided tour students played a game about the topic of Art organised by the Museum. It was followed by a Treasure Hunt of Budapest organised by Free spirit language school. It was really well-organised and engaging. Students visited important sights and gained knowledge of them.

A day trip to Hollókő was also carried out, during which we could get to know this important and traditional World Unesco Heritage site. We were given a thorough guide of the village visiting the old castle, the village museum, several traditional workshops and cultural places followed by handicraft workshops during which students could get a first-hand experience of traditional activities such as making cheese, sweetbread, working with leather, gingerbread and bulrush.

During the farewell party a carnival-themed evening was held where we could have the guests acquainted with the traditions and customs related to Carnival season including wearing costumes, traditional food, and literary pieces. Every team dresses up in costumes related to their national culture and it was extremely interesting to learn about the culture of our partner countries through the figures they portrayed. The costume demonstrations were accompanied by small performances of traditional songs and dances as well as games.

By the end of the mobility the students had gained and extensive knowledge on Arts and crafts, their partners’ traditional games, improved their acting and argumentative skills through drama and debate activities, engaged in creative activities to improve their artistic skills learn through personal experience.

All participants' intercultural, linguistic, social and digital skills were developed and all the activities as well as acquired knowledge and skills were documented in Europass Mobility documents.

All the activities planned for the meeting could be fully completed and these activities had a strong team-building effect and contributed to the strong relationship between partners.

The participating teachers also got acquainted with the Hungarian educational system and had an opportunity to observe classes. A teachers’ meeting was also organised in order to discuss issues related to project-management and we agreed on the activities that need to be carried out by the end of the project year and also made preparations for the final student exchange in Croatia. We also agreed on duties and responsibilities for carrying out the following project activities and started to collect ideas for the possible continuation of our cooperation upon the completion of our project.

FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES:

Digital skills: creating digital presentations, creating films

CLIL workshops for students on the topic of Art (describing artistic pieces, vocabulary related to Art and Craft).

Drama workshop for teambuilding and improving cooperation and creativity.

A lesson on Hungarian language.

Live Debate 5: A formal debate on the topic of Art. „Talent can be replaced by technology in Art. ” The students were prepared for the debate during workshops.

Project meeting for teachers: the participating teachers discussed issues related to project implementation and planned the forthcoming activities. They also set the dates for the online debates and agreed on activities related to local traditions and gastronomy. Evaluation tools were also designed and the activities until the end of the project were revised. The next student exchange was prepared.

WORKSHOPS:

Students took part in interactive quizzes created by their peers on Hungary

Students planned and performed mini plays based on the artistic materials students had compiled before the meeting. Using their creativity they needed to write the scripts based on a given title and sentences using artistic pieces as a framework. They needed to prepare their own props and costumes if needed. Some students of the host school were invited to view the performances and the debate.

Workshops were organised to prepare students for the live debate.

STUDENTS PRESENTATIONS on the topic of the meeting: National and local artistic figures of our towns and nations view.

EXHIBITION of the results and collaborative products: common painting jointly created by students, handicrafts and memes made during the workshops, performance of the mini-plays, the Live debate

CULTURAL VISITS.

During the sightseeing tours students acted as tour guides in order to practice their language and communication skills as well as strengthening their connection to their national heritage. The following cultural visits were organised:

- Visit to Hamvas Béla Library of Százhalombatta and Matrica museum

- Interactive tour around the city of Százhalombatta

- Visit to Budapest

- Visit to the Museum of Fine Arts

- Visit to Hollókő

Every visit was combined with guided tours and interactive tasks.

DISSEMINATION

The presence of foreign students and teachers was known by all school students, parents, and staff. Local authorities, representatives from the schools of the region as well as the media were invited to attend project activities. A television report for the local tv station was made and broadcast to familiarise the local people of the project activities. Every activity and result has been published on all project platforms and the participating students and teachers gave a presentation to their peers within their own institutions after the mobility.

EVALUATION

At the end of the mobility the participating students and teachers completed questionnaires with observations, assessment and comments. Their experience was analysed within project teams and their reflections were collected in the project blog in the form of a diary as well as different testimonials about the experience. A blog entry jointly edited by the partner countries was made for each day. In the fifth project newsletter (compiled by the Hungarian team) a detailed description of the mobility is given accompanied by reviews written by all partners.