A German-French-Slovak Teaching Project
Université de Rennes 2 and Matej Bel University Banská Bystrica (Slovakia) are part of the EMERGE university alliance, which made the development of our Erasmus+ BIP run smoothly.
As the city of Rennes is a cultural crossroads, it was an ideal location for the main topic of the BIP: the connections between history and culture at the regional, national, and European levels. Students had the opportunity to explore the socioeconomic and political challenges of cultural diversity, coexistence, and identities in the city, to enrich their learning experience in French (not only Standard French but also Breton), and to gain new knowledge on topics such as annexation, particularly of Brittany. They also learned about migration and cultural heritage by exploring often marginalized perspectives such as those of colonized and oppressed peoples, and by examining the legacy of slavery using the example of Nantes, located close enough to Rennes for a day trip.
Tips for staying in Rennes
- Website: Cocoonr.fr is useful for finding short-term holiday apartments.
- On buses or the metro, you can simply hold your bank card up to the scanner and confirm your selection on the touchscreen.
- Those interested in the cultural diversity of Brittany should consider combining their business trip with a personal excursion.
- The cafeterias at Université de Rennes 2 have microwaves for heating up food you bring with you.
BIP learning objectives
The structure of the BIP was developed in coordination with colleagues from both partner universities so that students could:
- complete many interactive tasks with their French and Slovak peers (e.g. icebreaker/energizer games, campus presentations, an escape game in Rennes city center, playful activities related to museum visits in Rennes and the castle in Nantes), enabling them to build connections,
- get their first taste of the Breton, Slovak, or German languages,
- actively participate in two interculturality workshops led by one French and one German colleague,
- experience teaching practices at a French university, and thereby
- further develop their language and intercultural skills.
Conclusion
The BIP was a wonderful project that not only allowed us lecturers to build relationships and learn from each other, but also to work as a trinational team, take on the challenge of such collaboration, and develop teaching and learning activities that encouraged our students to exchange ideas, be creative, make connections, and (re)discover aspects of French culture in general and of Brittany in particular—in short, to deepen their linguistic and intercultural skills through immersion in the foreign language.
