The aims are two-fold: to develop resources available to all regions throughout UK
and to carry out a series of events/ activities related to the theme
2014/15
• UPFEST 2015 'A Miniature Berlin Wall' Art Installation (25-27 July, Bristol)
Europe’s largest street art & graffiti festival will display our mini-Berlin Wall art installation, which is a collaborative project with ten local schools in Bristol area. Each school is running an internal competition entitled 'What I would have painted on the Berlin Wall' (poster attached) and will choose one 'East' and one 'West' design and paint them on a free standing panel (6 feet high / 8 feet long). This is a cross-curricular project, involving students of German, History and Art.
The ten panels will then be assembled into a mini-Berlin Wall at the UPFEST (25-27 July) in front of St Francis Church BS3 1JR to be viewed by festival visitors.
The art installation is designed to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversaries of the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification. This unique event will give local school children an exciting and creative means of engaging with German history and culture and some insight into an event which has significantly shaped the world in which they live.
UPFEST attracts over 250 artists painting 28 venues throughout Bristol; talented artists travel from 25 countries and across the UK to paint live on 30,000 sq ft of surfaces in front of 25,000 visitors. The festival is FREE to attend and we will actively promote it to secondary schools. Information leaflets will be handed out to the festival visitors, and staff will be working on site providing information about the installation and the historical background.
https://www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk/south-west/events/4244
• MOOC Online Course ‘Cultural Studies and Modern Languages’
A free online course, developed by Bristol University, offers you to explore the culture, language and national identity of 8 countries, from Russia to Latin America, through their books, images, slogans and monuments. It’s aimed at Sixth Form but might also be interesting to Yr 11 students. The level of commitment is 3 hrs per week on average. Only English is essential. The course will also give you a taste of BA in Modern Languages degree.
The course went live on Monday 16th February for four weeks and was open to all regions – 14,621 people signed up.
The course has been short-listed for a Bristol Teaching Award in the 2015 Awards, the winners will be announced on Monday 15th June.
The course will be run again in the autumn 2015.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/cultural-studies
• Bristol German Network
A small grant was given to the Network to support the organisation of the first cultural evening for German teachers hosted by the Watershed in April 2015. The cinema acquired a recent German film for them to see and discuss, followed by a small reception. The University of Bristol also hosts a webpage where BGN events will be publicised.
The aims of the Network are two-fold: for teachers of German to exchange ideas and keep abreast of current cultural output from German-speaking countries, but also for them to put on events to engage more students in language-learning.
• Talks/ Seminars in schools
German leaflets (attached) have been produced and sent out to schools in September 2014; 18 talks/ seminars on a wide range of topics have been delivered in secondary schools by staff members specialising in language, history, literature, and historical and socio-linguistics. Talks are ongoing.
• Cultural seminar
The ‘Introduction to Contemporary Latin American Politics’ seminar was delivered to Year 10 students at the University of Bath in January 2015.
2013/14
• Year 11/12 MFL Day – 2 cultural seminars were delivered in July 2014, one on Renaissance culture and one on post-war German culture ("Is Eating People Wrong?" and "Remembering the GDR").
• Cultural seminar on ‘Occupied France’ was delivered at the University of Bath in July 2014.
• Adopt A Class scheme – launched on a large scale in spring 2014 by 3 partner HEIs; about 50 partnerships between undergraduates on a year abroad and secondary schools in the SW and nationally have been set up. Students on a year abroad share their personal experience about the culture of the country they are in with their ‘adopted’ class via blogs/ e-mails/ post. The scheme is ongoing in 2014/15.
