REPORT Artmile International Collaborative Learning 2019
Country/Region [ Spain ]School [ IES Belén ] Teachers [ Rosa Castro, Mª Carmen Ramírez, Juana Sáenz, Concepción Ruiz ]Grade ( 2-3-4 ) Members ( 20 )JP school [ Hyogo Prefectural Ashiya International Secondary School ] Teachers [ Mari Nomura and Akihiro Okadome ]# Subjects, Activities and Hours of the lessons
SubjectConception of the lesson

ScienceEnglishArt

Social Abilities

Searching for information on energies and its effects on nature, focussed onmarine life. Benefits and problems of clean energies.
Exchanging this information with their Japanese school mates.
Thinking about actions that what can be done to improve the life in ourplanet.
Reading articles related to environment: clean energies, pollution, life underthe water.
Writing essays on clean energies.
Making power points to summarize their searching.
Deciding what to draw to represent our message to the world.
Making an outline of the picture and exchanging ideas with their Japanese
school mates to find a common composition.
Drawing and painting our part of the mural.
Introducing themselves (paper and video formats) and discovering their
Japanese partners’ introductions
Describing our school
Working in teams
Investigating and communicating results on their own country/region:
geography, monuments, typical food, etc.
Exchanging presents representative of their own culture

Hours88126# Theme and Message of the mural
Theme
Message
United thoughts toshare with theworld

Clean and sustainable energy benefits life under water: the health of the planet is in ourhandsLife conditions in the Earth are getting worse. Time is running out but we can still do ourbit to save the planet. Let’s work together.

# Effects and ProblemsEffects your students have gained
Points for further improvement
They have become more environmentally More interactive communication between students
conscious.
from both countries..
They are trying not to use so much plastics.
They have learnt the importance of working
together and sharing opinions.
They have become more interested in Japan andits culture.
They feel more comfortable when using the English
language# How has your impression toward your partner’s country/region and the world changed?
Changes in the students
Changes in the teachers
This is the first time our students have worked For the teachers this project has been an amazing
together with schoolmates from a different opportunity for practising collaborative work .At thecountry.
beginning we were a bit afraid due to ourIt has been a very enriching experience because inexperience but we must say that it has been very
they have realized that Japanese students have easy to work with our Japanese teachers. Their help
the same concerns and share similar points of and suggestions were great. We would be delighted toviews on the topics they have been working on.
repeat such a wonderful experience again.

# Flow of the Activity
ContentMonthMEET
Selfintroduction

SHARE
Research onthe theme

What you did

Your students attitude/reflection

AprilMay

Already in April we started ourcontact with Mrs. Nomura, theJapanese teacher, throughemail.
We
exchanged
information
about
our
respective schools and theteachers and students thatwere going to participate in theproject.
Our students recorded a video
to introduce themselves.
Then they also wrote selfintroduction cards which were
uploaded later to our Moodle
schoolThey were very happy while recording
the video. They tried to speak clearly tobe understood..
They were also excited thinking that
their video would be watched by
Japanese students.

Our students realized that the use ofpolluting energies has disastrous effects
and that these changes are happening
very quickly. They felt very worried
about the feeling that time was running
out.

June
Sept.
Oct.

Our students started toinvestigate on the topic (cleanenergies). They were divided
into 4 groups. Each group
looked for information on thetopic from different points ofview.
After that work, the different
groupsexchanged
theinformation.
Theysummarized
theirresearch in power points whichwere sent to our partners andposted to the forum.
We received our partners’
works and shared and debatedabout.

Teachers and students shared a reallyinteresting debate on the advantages
and disadvantages of the different
renewable energies

Subject

EnglishScienceEnglishWe opened a course in our
Moodle school to create amore fluid and direct
exchange of ideas between
Spanish and Japanese
students.

UNITE
Message ofNov.
Teacherscollected
students' ideas, exchanged
their views and joined
theminacommon
message to send to theworld.

united thoughts

CREATE
Mural painting

APPRECIATE
Reflection/Appreciation

Dec.
Jan.
Feb.

Feb.
March

Our students were so worried after theirresearch that the message they
released and shared with their partners
was: “time is running out”. But soonafter, and thanks to our partners not so
negative point of view, they changed
their thought and together with their
Japanese mates, agreed that “time isrunning out” but, “working together anddoing our bit, the situation can bechanged”. After this exchange of ideas
our students changed to a more positive
point of view.

JapaneseandSpanish
students made different
sketches to express ourcommon message and fromthe different ideas came thefinal proposal from one of
the Japanese students. We,
Spanish,added
andsuggested small changes
and our partners started
their painting.
Once we received the mural
we started do our part. We
divided the fan/clock into
three parts according to ourprevious
reflection:thehealth of our planet is bad(first section on the left of
the fan/clock), and the time
is running out (it’s five pasteleven) but if we do our bit
using for example, clean
energies (section in the
middle of the fan/clock) wecould have a beautiful planet(section on the right of thefan/clock)

The attitude of our students couldn’t
be better. They all did their bit painting
the mural and thinking that theirmessage would be shared by many otheryoung people from different countries.

We exhibited the mural in
the school hall to show it
to the entire educational
community.
We made a blog post in theschool library and sent thelink to our Japaneseclassmates.
Thelocalnewspaper has made anarticle about this project
and the local television hasinterviewed us.

The students are very satisfied with thefinal result. For them, it has been thebest part of the project because they
have seen their ideas represented in avisible and concrete object, that they
have created with their own hands andshared with boys and girls from acountry as far away as Japan. We are all
proud to have overcome this challenge.

It has been a fantastic process to see
how the initial idea (time, representedby the clock) has incorporated the fan,
as an element that both cultures share,
and have merged into an idea that has
allowed us to shape the mural and divide
the work with a result so harmonious
and integrated that it is difficult todistinguish where both parts begin andend. The students were fascinated.

ScienceEnglishEnglishArt

SpanishEnglish

# Effect and evaluation gained through the collaborative learning
Evaluation: Rank 5 to 1 (5: very effective / 4: effective / 3: so- so / 2: not so effective / 1: not effective at all)

Expected effectEvaluation

Understanding yourown cultures

5

Understanding yourpartner's cultures

4Information literacy(research, share)

Communication ability(interactive exchange)

Critical thinking(objective, logical views)

Active learningand action
Collaboration(in the class, with partners)

Expression ability(in words, in pictures)

44

5

5

5

5

Appreciation ability(the mural, the wholecollaborative learning)

5

Scenes / points teachers felt the effects
This project has raised awareness among our students. Looking for
information they have realized that in their country people are working
on environment trying to make things change. While investigating theyalso found out that in Málaga, their city, a lot of work on environment isbeing carried out by local authorities.
Our students have missed a bit more personal communication with theirmates, we mean, they would have liked to use social media to keep intouch with them. Despite this, the self -study cards have made it
possible to know what their Japanese mates like, what they do in their
free time, etc. They found that they had many things in common with
their mates.
Students have had the need to search for information, selecting theappropriate sources and transmitting the information orally and in writing.
For this, they have used information and communication technologies. It
was a work that they had to do alone but we realized that they did nothave enough autonomy and have had to be guided in this process. It has
been the hardest part of the work.
The exchange of information was good but, as we said before, moreinteractive communication between students from both countries could
be a good idea for the future.
Talking about environment our students are able to know which things
are wrong and should be changed. There is still a lot of work to do since
not everybody is environmentally conscious.
Painting a mural has encouraged them to research. about the topic. Theyknew that everything they learnt had to be painted to be shown to theworld. This was a great responsibility.
The students that have been working on the project were in different
school levels, which sometimes make the work difficult. However, with
their effort the collaborative work was a success.
They have used English as a tool of communication in real contexts(introductions, research exchanges,...) and have expressed their thoughts
using paint brushes and paint. Living in the age of images, using onlywritten formats is a bit scarce.
All the school staff and students have appreciated the mural and havecongratulated the teachers and students that have taken part in theproject, so they felt the importance of being part of their work.