The Erasmus+ project titled ‘’PLAY2ADAPT’’ tackles an issue currently important in multicultural Europe, namely the struggle with the adaptation of immigrants and refugees to a new country. About 5 million people had to leave their country due to wars and political pressures and they were settled to different countries mostly in Turkey. This is a common issue not only in Turkey but also all around the world. Our school is in the area where a lot of immigrants and refugees have been defected from their countries where they live in. By the course given to teachers with the coordination of The Ministry of National Education and UNICEF in 2017, we have learnt that the immigrants and refugees have adaptation problems to a new country. And also, we have observed both immigrants/refugees and Turkish students’ problems in our school and we have decided to write this project to provide the adaptation of these students to a new school life easily and cohere with Turkish students by the help of children games.

We think games have no language, in other words, they are an international way of interaction. So, games help students adapt easier to a new country and school. The main aim of the project is to adapt the immigrant and refugee students with their peers thanks to children games.

Objectives

The aims of the project includes raise the student’s awareness of the differences and similarities between cultures and lifestyles; provide interaction between cultures with the help of children games; raise the quality of foreign language learning and 4 main skills both students and teachers; encourage the attitude of team work, communicative skills, and social interaction among children with their European peers; develop peer teaching and ‘’learning by doing’’ theories; encourage entrepreneurship in students and increase their employment skills and sense of creativity; explore new teaching strategies, methods and techniques.

Target group

The group that the project is focused on are students between 10 and 17 years old, teachers, partner schools and indirectly to parents, universities and local communities in which the school’s functions as well as to all other groups which aim to conduct educational activities in the field of communication and education who seek inspiration and are willing to share our experiences and use project results/products made available through various information channels.

Partners

The PLAY2ADAPT team is composed of five partners from Turkey, Macedonia, Greece, Portugal and Spain. we form a multidisciplinary team that reflects a wide range of cultural contexts and with different educational systems that facilitate the study and development of new methodologies of social and educational inclusion.
The team is formed by:

• Mihriban Emin Günel Ortaokulu, a secondary school located in the hearth of Nevsehir (Cappadocia – Turkey)
• EB Comendador Angelo Azevedo belongs to a cluster of schools named Agrupamento de Escolas Dr. Ferreira da Silva, a secondary school located in Cucujães, Portugal.
• EK KAVALAS, a School Workshops Centre. Supports the laboratories (engineering, in the technical and Vocational schools in the city of Kavala. Greece.
• COLEGIO VIRGEN DE LA ROSA, is a secondary school, located in Burgos. Spain.
• OU DEBRCA, is a primary level school located in Ohrid, Republic of North Macedonia.

Activities

The main activities in the project include: initial and final assessment of questionnaires about adaptation of immigrant and refugee students with children games, analysis of data gathered, creation of new products such as DVDs, CDs, brochures, a booklet, a calendar about children games, preparing a booklet about new teaching methodologies, organization of local festival and educational workshops, simple e-learning publications promoting multiculturalism and raising awareness among participants in the project. The main project results and products include: methodological publications and interactive games connected with the projects’ main topic. The main result of the project will change in the attitude and awareness among schools have immigrant and refugee students. As final products, we will make up an international website and a brochure including children games, DVDs and CDs about children games, we will publish a booklet about teaching methodologies, modify school playgrounds and prepare calendar. The results will be used long after the conclusion of the project and all results of the project will be archived in the electronic form and made available from an online website. With the help of this international project we want to enhance the students’ and teachers’ interests in foreign language learning and cross the boundaries that exist between different European cultures and languages.