ERASMUS* Strategic Partnership

Skills for Life: Literacy (SLL)

Newsletter No. 6
June 2016
Material made with the
financial support of the
European Comission.
The content of this material
represents the exclusive
responsibility of the authors
and the National Agency and
the European Comission are
not responsible for the way
in which the content of the
information will be used.

Changing lives.
Opening
minds.
Changing
lives.
Opening minds.
The slogan of our
partnership is:
Literacy is a bridge
from misery to
hope
(Kofi Annan, former
UN secretarygeneral).

In this newsletter:
1.Presentation of the
project: objectives,
relevance and motivation,
target groups, activities,
intellectual products
2. Partners

Changing lives.

The partnership will take place between September

2014 and August 2016 and involves
5 European
Opening
minds.
schools.
Erasmus+ is the EU Programme in the fields of
education, training, youth and sport for the period
2014-2020.

3. Intellectual products
Key Action 2 (Co-operation for Innovation and the
"The teaching of Life Skills
Exchange of Good Practices) is a mix of
with Literacy" (A Training
decentralized projects run by National Agencies and
Manual)
centralized activities managed by the European
develop pupils skills in Commissions
literacy (reading,
writing, Agency.
speaking and listening) and their
Executive
"Think Literacy:
Crosstransversal key competences (critical thinking, attitude networking, communication
Curricular and
Approaches"
collaboration with others,
communication
andin English
language,
learning to
Strategic
Partnerships
the field
of education,
("Literacy
lessons")
learn,
spirit initiative). training and youth are collaborative projects allowing
organizations to improve provision, tackle common
reading capitalization strategies
developing
skills in students and
issues andfor
share
innovativeliteracy
practice.
encouraging
reading
for pleasure among students.
Projects
specific
objectives
developing teachers' knowledge and skills in the design and organization of
activities and lessons that help develop students transversal key competences
1 Project
site:inhttp://sll-erasmusplus.eu/
and skills
literacy.
Theand
slogan
of our partnership
is:
promoting the exchange of innovative practices
experiences
between
European schools through the developmentLiteracy
of teaching
materials
based to
onhope
is a bridge
from misery
strategies for reading, writing, speaking.
(Kofi Annan, former UN secretary-general).

Project motivation
According to the EU high level group of experts on literacy. Final report, 2012, today,
the EU is in a literacy crisis, since between 2000-2009, the level of reading for
pleasure has declined steadily. We, the citizens of Europe, must act both to raise
awareness of the literacy crisis and to find solutions.
Many students from Europe have a hard time reading, writing, communicating orally.
The fact that one in five students of 15 years old do not have enough reading skills is
highlighted by the results from PISA. These students need to be supported to develop
their skills in literacy. Across the EU, one child in five struggles to reach the level of
reading that enables them to learn by the time they are adolescents. Figures range from
a low of 8% struggling readers in Finland to more than 40% in Bulgaria and Romania.
Teachers should receive more support in their efforts to raise the level of literacy among
students (both during school hours and during school activities) to create a literate
environment. All teachers teach reading and writing. All teachers, regardless their taught
Activities
subject, may include among their lesson objectives other objectives related
to literacy.
But, to do this, teachers need to participate in programs and projects in this area.
Improving teachers teaching and learning skills will have a positive impact on raising
the students level of literacy.

Target groups
Our project is relevant to the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy because the
skills developed in the field of literacy facilitate learning, improve key skills necessary
target groups
for the
implementation
of projectEuropean
activities are
teachers and
to 19-yearforThe
lifelong
learning.
Teachers
from different
countries
will 14exchange
old- students.and best practices in literacy, will collaborate to develop educational
experiences
materials
useful
in teaching and learning with students.
Projects
relevance
Our project is intersected in at least two priority action (key competences, lifelong
learning, languages) and the objectives of the action (basic skills, sustainable
development). Our project is based on the transfer, development and implementation
2 ofProject
site:
practices
in http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/
literacy skills among students. Our project aims at least one of the
priorities set by the European Commission for strategic partnerships in school
education on improving the educational outcomes and skills (basic skills) among
students.

PISAs results
The placement of the partner countries on the last positions in international tests
(such as PISA) confirms the lack of literacy skills among students. Here arethe
positions occupied by the partner countries at the PISA test 2012: Italy-32 Greece42nd, Turkey-43rd, Romania-44th, Bulgaria-46th.

Projects activities
five transnational project meetings: Romania (February 2015), Turkey (May 2015),
Greece (October 2015), Italy (March 2016), Bulgaria (May 2016).
activities with students in order to develop literacy skills.
activities for developing the established intellectual products: "The teaching of Life
Skills with Literacy" (A Training Manual) and "Think Literacy: Cross-Curricular
Approaches" ("Literacy lessons").
dissemination and exploitation (newsletters, articles, presentation, project website,
flyers, posters, logo, social media, exhibitions)
monitoring and evaluation (SWOT analysis, questionnaires, observation, group
discussions, analysis of results).

Work Packages
The two years of the project (September 2014-August 2016) was organised in 6
work packages: WP 1: Management and Coordination, WP 2: Transnational Project
Meetings, WP 3: The guide "The teaching of Life Skills with Literacy" (A Training
Manual), WP 4: The guide "Think Literacy: Cross-Curricular Approaches" ("Literacy
lessons"), WP 5: Dissemination and Exploitation, WP 6: Monitoring, and Evaluation.

Partners:

3 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

Liceul Stefan Procopiu

(Romania, Vaslui) - coordinator
5th General Senior High School of Aigaleo
Foreign Language Secondary School
(Greece, Aigaleo) - partner
(Bulgaria, Pleven) -- partner
partner

Yildirim
ISISS Beyazit
CicogniniAnadolu
Rodari (Prato,
Lisesi Italy)
(Bursa,

partner
Turkey) partner

INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTS

"The teaching of Life Skills with Literacy"

(A Training Manual)
The guide "The teaching of Life Skills with Literacy" (A Training Manual) has the following
structure:
Module I. Reading Strategies
Module II. Writing Strategies
Module III. Speaking and listening activities (Communication Strategies)
Annex: Reading and comprehension strategies.
Module I. Reading Strategies
4 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

As students progress through school, they are asked to read increasingly complex
informational and graphical texts in their courses. The ability to understand and use the
information in these texts is key to a students success in learning. Successful students
have a repertoire of strategies to draw upon, and know how to use them in different
contexts. Struggling students need explicit teaching of these strategies to become better
readers.

Reading skills are essential to the academic achievement of middle and high school
students. To help students develop metacognition, teachers must show them how reading
strategies are effective in improving their reading comprehension. Also teachers must
direct students to reread for meaning, provide plenty of content for language learning, and
allow students to boost vocabulary. When students realize that they do not understand
what they are reading, they must be capable of mobilizing strategies to correct the
problem. Students master these skills when they actively construct meaning, learn more
about themselves and others, read from a variety of sources, and view reading as an
enjoyable experience.
This module contains 30 activities based on reading strategies that have the following
objectives:
improving correct, conscientious, fluent and expressive reading.
improving the ability to deduct and interpret information, facts, ideas from a text.
encouraging students to make connections between texts and their personal
experience
nvolving students in active and conscious implementation of transversal reading
competences (critical thinking, independent learning and thinking, relating what
they have learned to their own experiences and reflecting upon the ideas and
information presented in the text).
5 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

developing students ability to understand, describe and select information, facts

and main ideas from a text and to use the information to assert their point of view;
developing respect, communication and cooperation among students.
encouraging acceptance of different opinions and general diversity.

Some of the activities proposed as a starting point a story:

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant;
The Lady or The Tiger? by Frank Stockton;
The Model Millionaire by Oscar Wilde;
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry;
Mr. Know All by William Somerset Maugham;
The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving.
Short stories are important for several reasons:
Reading literary texts helps understanding and exploring the human nature.
Literature represents an endless source of experiencing reality indirectly. It is an
enormous opportunity for them to get to know indirectly other universes.
Literature helps developing imagination and creative thinking.
The texts often describe the way in which a certain problem has been solved or
offer other solutions.
The texts offer models of behaviour, being an educational tool, a source of
examples or counter examples which can be used for students education.
These activities can improve students knowledge about certain writers and
consequently can arouse their interest in reading.

Module II. Writing Strategies

Students learn to write by writing. They need regular opportunities at school
write in all subjects. A consistent approach to the writing process in all
subject areas and explicit instruction on the writing process by the subject
teacher help students become better writers.

to

Module II is divided into two parts:

Part I: Writing exercises for developing creativity
Part II: Writing skills: essential skills for school and career
For the first part, Writing exercises for developing creativity:
Bulgarian team proposed activities focused on job-oriented topics such as
application, CV, letter of motivation, filling in questionnaires, analysis and job
requirements.
6 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

Greek, Italian and Romanian teams proposed writing activities based on strategies
that complement the activities proposed for the first module of the guide "The
teaching of Life Skills with Literacy" (A Training Manual). The most widely used
strategies used by Italian team are student-centered and based on guided
exercises and in particular:
Guided text analysis (Topic, characters, setting, timing,
language used);
Summarizing;
Creative Writing;
Find another title to the story;
Critical persuasive writing.
Turkish team proposed five sets of activities and exercises aimed at:
Generating ideas;
Developing and organizing the ideas;
Revising and editing ideas;
Generating ideas or finding additional facts.

The second part of the module "Writing Strategies" is organized as a training course for
students entitled Writing skills: essential skills for school and career.
The structure of the course for students is as follows:
1. Learning to learn- key competence for the personal and professional
development
1.1. The key competence Learning to learn a demand of the knowledge society
1.2. The writing abilities - essential abilities for school and career
1.3. Taking notes efficiently
1.3.1. Taking notes-general considerations
1.3.2. Taking notes during lessons and discourses
1.3.3. Taking notes during individual study
1.3.4. Graphic organizers
1.4. The technique of making up written material
1.4.1. Types of written material (report, scientifically communication, essay,
article and book reviews, theses)
1.4.2. Writing a scientific paper
1.5. Chapter evaluation
2. Business Writing
2.1. Filling in the CV
2.1.1. What is a CV?
2.1.2. Types of CV
2.1.3. The sections of a Euro pass CV
2.2.4. The secrets of a good CV
2.2. Developing an intent letter
2.2.1. What is an intent letter?
2.2.2. The structure of an intent letter
2.2.3. Tips for writing an intent letter
7 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

2.3. Electronic mail

2.3.1. The advantages of electronic mail
2.3.2. The structure of an e-mail
2.3.3. Etiquette norms (netiquette)
2.4. Tips for making a good Power Point
2.5. Chapters evaluation
3. General information about the course
3.1. The general objectives of the course:
3.2. Suggested activities
The first part of the course, "Learning to learn- key competence for the personal
and professional development" contributes to the formation and strengthening of
intellectual work habits (such as taking notes, drafting reports) to familiarize students with
research and writing techniques. The second part of the course, "Business Writing"
helps students develop the skills necessary to complete a European CV and covering
letter and to familiarize them with the concept of "netiquette" and optimize the skills of
drafting emails according to set rules. We believe that this module is very useful for
students because any intellectual activity calls for written expression, which is why it is
clearly a "life skill" an asset for school and professional success.

Module III. Speaking and listening activities (Communication Strategies)

Oral skills both speaking and listening are at the very foundation of literacy. Classroom
talk helps students to learn, to reflect on what they are learning, and to communicate their
knowledge and understanding.
The structure of this module is as follows:
1. Communication strategies proposed by Bulgarian team
1.1. Agreeing and disagreeing during a conversation on Generation gap and Gender
roles, asking, explaining and checking
1.2. Presentation skills: Emphasis
2. Communication strategies proposed by Greek team
2.1. Ancient Greek language and literature: creation and presentation of a TV-breaking
news bulletin about the facts of the Battle Aegospotami
2.2. Debate in a history lesson (the byzantine history)
8 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

3. Communication strategies proposed by Turkish team

3.1. Oral communcaton strateges
3.2. Types of oral strategies
3.3. Communication skills
3.4. Communicating Strategy: Triangle Debate
4. Communication strategies proposed by Italian team
4.1. Psychology congress "The well done head"
4.2. Introducing a schoolmate
5. Communication strategies proposed by Romanian team
5.1. Efficient communication Assertiveness
5.2. Efficient communication: Active listening
5.3. Professional communication: Go to the interview!
The Annex Reading and comprehension strategies contains 40 reading and text
comprehension strategies, such as: Anticipation guide, Creating Word Wall, Tea party,
Concept sort, First lines, Think-Pair-Share (TPS), Inferences, Most/least important ideas
and information, GIST Method, Read and say something, Think aloud, Reciprocal Thinks
READING
WRITING
ORAL COMMUNICATION
Understand text
Write for a purpose
Listen and speak in pairs,
types
& audience
small groups,
and forms
Use different forms
and large groups
Use text features to find
of writing
Make presentations
Information
Generate ideas
Talk to clarify understanding
Use strategies for before,
Organize
Write conversationally
during, and after reading
Revise
Use language conventions
Develop comprehension
Proofread
Build vocabulary
Alouds, Concept Maps, Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD), Story maps, Frame routine, Scales,
Somebody wanted but so, Question the Autor, Visualising, Asking and genereting
questions, 5-4-3-2-1 Strategy.

"Think Literacy: Cross-Curricular Approaches"

("Literacy lessons")
The structure of this product is as follows:
Lessons about EU - Romanian team
1.Europe
2. Europe and the evolution of the idea of European unification
3. The brith of the European Community
4. Enlargements
5. EU Treaties
6. EU Institutions
7. Economic Integration
8. Unity in Diversity
9 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

9. Areas of Interest within the European Union

10. Dilemmas and challenges of Europe
The learning activities entitled "Lessons about the European Union" represent a proposal
for an optional subject for 14-19 years olds in order to provide them with the opportunities
to understand the essential facts about the European integration. "Lessons about the
European Union" contributes to the development of key competences for lifelong learning,
recommended by the European Parliament and European Council, such as:
social and civic competences;
communicating in the mother tongue;
learning to learn;
cultural awareness.
The proposed activities comply with some of the requirements of lifelong learning such as:
use of active methods (learning through discovery, problem solving, cooperative
learning, debate, text analysis, case study) that contribute to the development of
communication skills, social interaction, and critical thinking;
use of methods of comprehension and understanding of informal/nonliterary texts
("Say something", filling in graphic organizers, asking questions, writing workshop)
in order to develop literacy skills.
Lessons about Non-material Cultural Heritage - Bulgarian team
1.European Cultural Heritage
2. European culture Le chanteur- Daniel Balavoine
3. World Culture Heritage
4. KUKERI Non-material Cultural Heritage
5. Lesson of perception of literary work
6. Medieval dance in Europe
7. Perspectives on Supernatural Macbeth
8. Second lesson
9. The road and the journey in the world of fairy tales
10. Traditions and symbols in cultural context
The main objectives of the activities proposed by Bulgarian team are:
Development of motivation for creativity-curiosity and interest in new, respect
for the creative personality, emotional attitude towards products of creativity
and awareness of their benefits, demand, joy and satisfaction of creative
expression and discovery;
Development of information literacy - a key component of independence and
lifelong learning. Ability to determine the necessary information and be used
effectively to accomplish a specific goal.
Ability to communicate, to understand or to get someone to understand
certain messages in a variety of situations with different purposes.
Skills to search, collect and process written information and concepts and
systematically organize them.
Formulate own arguments in writing persuasive speech.
Skills to use resources (notes, schemes, maps ...) to create written texts
10 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

Development of socio-cultural competence-the ability to tell, justify, ask

questions, explain, use appropriate language tools specific to the situation of
communication according to participants, subject, purpose and conditions.
The student is able to find specific information in the text.
The student is able to summarize the information in the plan.
Lesson Plans - Greek team
1.Refugees and Migrants
2. Pages from Modern Greek history
3. Modern Greek Literature. Migration and Life as a refugee:
two forms of uprooting
4. English lesson on the topic of Refugees
5. The protection of human rights in the case of
refugees
results of the A World War and Surrealism
lesson: Art in Education: The life and work of great Italian painters of

6.
The
7. English
Renaissance
8. Maths and poetry- two ancient spiritual activities
9. ncient Greek history and modern Greek poetry
10. Unemployment

The Greek team has proposed five cross-curricular lesson plans on the issue of refugees,
seen from different perspectives as far as the subjects taught at school are concerned
(Modern Greek Language, Modern Greek Literature, Modern Greek History, English
Language).
The rationale behind the choice of this topic is that the constant refugee and migrant
flows, as seen nowadays, in times of general international political and financial instability
is a major controversial issue Europe has to deal with in the next few days, weeks, years.
In an indirect way, it affects the lives of all European citizens and the relations among
European states. The lack of awareness in combination with the domination of personal
and national interests, especially from the side of states, have a considerable share of
responsibility for the current state of those countries which bleed every day through the
death of thousands of people, being involved in a horrifying disaster and deprived of every
hope for the future.
In this section of the Second Guide, the Greek team has decided to work on five crosscurricular lesson plans focusing mainly on the concept of Art as seen in different school
subjects. In this way, students realise the deeper interrelation of apparently dissimilar
subjects and the direct impact of Art on their everyday lives.
Reading and Comprehension Strategies used: Pre-reading plan, Think-pair-share,
making predictions, creating a word-wall, recalling prior knowledge, Brainstorming, story
sequence, skimming and scanning strategies, Graphic Organiser strategy (Events
--Outcomes or Causes-- Outcomes), Graphic Organiser (The compare Matrix), Reading
Between the lines/inferences and Reading Between the lines/inferences- template, Asking
Questions strategy and Asking and Generating Questions / The text says, I infer, So I infer
that..,, Read and say Something Strategy, Charts-matching, Think Aloud Strategy or
11 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

Reciprocal Think-AIouds, Summarization: Most /Least important idea/s and information,

Inquiry Chart, Question the Author, SQRRR strategy (survey-question-read-recite-review),
Summarising 5-4-3-2-1.
Lesson Plans - Turkish team
1.What I look Like
2. All about me
3. Places I have been to
4. On Holiday
5. An Imaginary World

6. Lets Celebrate
7. Films I have seen
8. My Everyday Experiences
9. Our Green World
10. Lets Decide

12 Project site: http://sll-erasmusplus.eu/

The objectives of the activities proposed by Turkish team are:

Identify the person being described
Describe a persons appearance
Introduce themselves
Talk about their/ someones hobbies or interests
Describe their hometown
Talk about the places they would like to live with reasons.
Express their experiences
Describe touristic areas
Use past expressions in order to convey the meaning of a story
Talk about something happened to them
Use suggestions for certain occasions
Describe the customs of several national or universal celebrations
Talk about films
Describe the features of a film
Talk about their experiences in the past
Understand the order of sequence of past events
To talk about green life, recycling, nature
To suggest opinions for solutions to pollution
To differentiate the similarities or differences between two things

Lesson Plans - Italian team

1. The Industrial Revolution In England
1.1. The causes of industrial revolution
1.2. The transport revolution
1.3.
The social effects of the industrial revolution
2. Psychology Congress "THE WELL DONE HEAD"
3. John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Addresses
4. Is it the same story? Comparing novels to films
5. Plautus
and Terence in comparison
6. ncient latin theatre by images: who, what, where, when, why, how
7. DNA structure and replication
8. Plants: form, function, reproduction and development
9. The Gettysburg address
10. Guess the...historic figure
11.Ancient latin theatre by images: who, what, where, when, why, how.?
The Italian contribution focused on the following transversal competences:
to search, find and select information about an assigned topic
to read and to analyze different types of texts and sources
to improve the use of multimedia tools to find information and to present the results
to other students
to make inferences, to connect different data, to organize them in a proper structure
to explain clearly and properly the results of their work

to work together in a group

to listen to others contributions and to reassemble the knowledge they built
together into a proper, unified framework
interpreting images and different types of texts
summarizing
vocabulary building and using
autonomous using of language

The most widely used strategies by Italian team were student-centered and in particular
the learning by doing, the inquiry-based learning, the cooperative learning, the learning by
discovery and the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) methodology. This
type of approach, that could be defined multimodal, has been chosen in order to
intercept the different learning styles of the students and to arouse the students
motivation and stimulate their intuition and their ability of linking their knowledge in a
multidisciplinary way.
Material made with the financial support of the European Comission.
The content of this material represents the exclusive responsibility of the
authors and the National Agency and the European Comission are not
responsible for the way in which the content of the information will be
used.