This year, the beautiful premises of the Neo-Renaissance Bohemia Pavilion at the Prague Exhibition Centre hosted the European Language Label Award and the European Award for Innovative Teaching.
The European Language Label Award is an activity of the European Commission to support outstanding and innovative projects in the field of language education. It aims to promote high quality innovative projects, to motivate and inspire other teachers to use innovative practices in language teaching and to increase pupils' motivation to learn foreign languages.
The European Innovative Teaching Award rewards the best innovative projects implemented under the Erasmus+ programme in the field of school education and vocational training. This prize will be awarded by the European Commission from 2021.
The Erasmus+ EU_UP project (ErasmusUpdate_UpskillingPeople), in which the Department of Literature and Drama of our school participated, won the first mentioned award. On Thursday, 28th November, the representatives of the school Iva Vrátilová, Veronika Lisičanová, David Lukáš and Filip Janouch received the award from the DZS (House of Foreign Cooperation) and the MŠMT (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports) in the Bohemia Hall.
The general criteria for the award include:
- The project should be comprehensive in its approach. All elements of the language project should aim to identify and meet the needs of the target groups.
- The project should add value in its national context. This means a clear improvement in the quality and quantity of language teaching and learning. Quantity' may refer to a project that promotes the learning of more languages, especially less widely spoken ones, while 'quality' may refer to the introduction of improved practices, approaches and methods.
- The project should motivate pupils and teachers to improve their language skills.
- The project should be original and creative. It should use innovative approaches to foreign language learning and ensure their suitability for the target group.
- The project should highlight European principles. It should be adapted to and take advantage of Europe's linguistic diversity, for example through international cooperation. The project should actively promote intercultural understanding through language skills.
- The project should be transferable and a source of inspiration for language projects in institutions in the Czech Republic or abroad.
We are confident that the other projects ahead of us will be innovative and will inspire further international cooperation.
