Connecting Classrooms is British Council’s global school partnerships project which involves 7 countries in East Asia – Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Understanding global issues enables young people to relate their experience and knowledge to the lives of people in other communities. It breaks down prejudice and equips them to participate fully in the world community. That’s why the UK is aiming for all its schools to have an international partnership, a goal shared by many countries in East Asia.
Connecting Classrooms aims to create and encourage dialogues between many different cultures and perspectives. We will give young people, many of whom will play important and influential roles in their own communities, countries and region both now and in the future, the opportunity to tell us exactly what they think being a ‘Global Citizen’ is about.
Where Connecting Classrooms is unique is that it is curriculum led. For sustainable international school partnerships, we are endeavouring to embed school partnership activities within the curriculum. It is therefore mandatory for the teachers to teach, not extra curricular. To this end, we have been working with curriculum authorities across the region to bring an international dimension to each country’s curriculum.
We’ve developed partnerships between 200 schools in the UK and 400 in East Asia by bringing teachers together face-to-face and linking them and their students online. Now they’re working together creating curriculum materials on topics like climate and sports and health to help develop their communication skills and the international dimension of their schools.
To find out more, please e-mail your enquiry to us.
