English as a lingua franca practices for inclusive multilingual classrooms Erasmus Project

Project Title

English as a lingua franca practices for inclusive multilingual classrooms

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

According to EU educational policy studies and reports, there is an urgent need to support teachers in addressing and building upon the linguistic diversity found in today’s classrooms across Europe. In this respect, special emphasis is placed on the role of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in empowering teachers to integrate languages of international communication in multilingual classrooms, so as to help their learners, including learners from migrant backgrounds, develop skills which are crucial for social inclusion and employability in the current globalised and highly demanding world. As is highlighted, English language teachers (ELTs), in particular, should acknowledge the role of English as a lingua franca (ELF), i.e. as the most frequently employed means of international and intercultural communication in Europe and beyond. Integrating ELF in multilingual classrooms necessarily requires the development of a new set of competences for ELTs, who, as research shows, have not yet incorporated in their teaching an awareness of this role of English, let alone an awareness of the relevance of ELF to multilingualism or to social inclusion and employability. A key reason for this is that ELF-related issues are not sufficiently covered in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) or CPD programmes across Europe.

Consisting of a network of experts from five increasingly multilingual European countries (Greece, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, Norway) who specialize in teacher education and ELF, the ‘English as a Lingua Franca Practices for Inclusive Multilingual Classrooms (ENRICH)’ project aims at developing an innovative, effective, efficient and sustainable CPD infrastructure which will equip in-service ELTs with the necessary competences for integrating ELF in multilingual classrooms. These include: a) up-to-date knowledge and awareness of the nature and role of ELF (E of ENRICH); b) collaboration and critical thinking skills through networking (N) focusing on multilingualism and ELF; c) skills for planning, managing and coordinating teaching which integrates ELF in multilingual classrooms involving especially learners from migrant backgrounds, such as refugees (R); skills for using innovative (I) language teaching practices (translanguaging, CLIL, TBL, ICT) and appropriate cultural content (C) related to the European Cultural Heritage, so as to develop the learners’ ELF-related communicative (e.g. mediation, negotiation) and other transversal skills (e.g. cultural awareness) necessary for employability and social inclusion in today’s world. To this end, ENRICH aims at employing a high-quality (H) CPD methodology by integrating competence-oriented tasks, mentoring, collaborative, reflective and ICT-based learning, and, when appropriate, by linking CPD to ITE, as regards ELF-related issues not sufficiently covered therein, to ensure the provision of more localised, relevant and effective professional development for teachers.

The ENRICH CPD endeavour will be carried out within a time period of 36 months as follows. At first, a Needs Analysis survey will be carried out to identify: a) the training needs of in-service ELTs with respect to multilingualism, ELF and teaching young and adolescent learners in multilingual classrooms, including migrants, and b) the needs and wants of these learners, as regards learning and using English. Based on the findings, as well as on a comprehensive literature review on relevant issues, a CPD course will be developed, piloted and implemented across the partner countries. This course will adopt a blended learning (face-to-face and online) approach and will focus on the teacher competences mentioned above. During its implementation phase, the ENRICH partners will act as mentors of the participating ELTs (approx. 15-30 from each partner country), who, as part of the course, will also be engaged in designing, teaching and evaluating original lessons in their own classrooms. Finally, a Handbook will be created, containing, among others, the CPD materials, good practices from the ELTs’ classrooms, and key information aiming at fostering the transferability and multiplication prospects of the project and informing educational policy and research.

Other equally important aspects include: a) the development of the project’s website, b) evaluation and quality assurance and c) dissemination, exploitation and sustainability. The main deliverables (Needs Analysis, CPD course, Handbook) will be disseminated through multiplier events in the partner countries, as well as through a final conference, addressing the main target groups of ENRICH: a) ELTs, b) teacher educators, c) educational policymakers, d) experts and researchers in the areas of multilingualism and ELF. Due to the innovative nature of ENRICH and its high potential in breaking new ground in teacher education focusing on multilingualism and ELF, the impact on all of these groups is expected to be more than significant.

Project Website

http://enrichproject.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 299608 Eur

Project Coordinator

HELLENIC OPEN UNIVERSITY & Country: EL

Project Partners

• INSTITOUTO TECHNOLOGIAS YPOLOGISTONKAI EKDOSEON DIOFANTOS
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE
• BOGAZICI UNIVERSITESI
• UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA
• OSLOMET – STORBYUNIVERSITETET