VALUE – Valuing All Languages to Unlock Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

VALUE – Valuing All Languages to Unlock Europe

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The VALUE project – Valuing All Languages to Unlock Europe- was a cross-field strategic partnership to provide learners with tools and methods to use both the language of instructions (OCSE) and the language of origin at different levels of competences.
This project was a response to the need across the EU school systems for an inclusive multilingual and intercultural pedagogy.
The project has been implemented by a partnership of six organisations from five European countries including NGOs, research centres, university departments and one school, other schools have been associated in each partner countries: Oxfam Italia (Italy), PAH (Poland), CARDET (Cyprus), FAU (Germany) and ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO “F.MOCHI” (Italy).
The VALUE project aims at addressing the new challenges faced by European education systems arising from an increasing presence of students and pupils of foreign origins, with different linguistic and cultural references. In particular with the new wave of racism and intollerance born in the last year Value wants show the importance of multilingualism in order to promote inclusion and valorize interculturality.The project was based on the partners previous expertise and experience. In particular the idea started from the idea that if delivered effectively, these approaches help schools by:
– Creating more engaging curriculum and using learner centred pedagogies
– Engaging and motivating students (particularly students with fewer opportunities e.g. social obstacles, cultural differences, exposed to early school leaving) to value multilingualism as a unique resource to enhance inclusion and reduce disparities.
– Developing transversal skills and competencies
The project methodology was to use the current experience of partners promoting two-fold approach. 1)Enhancing the methodologies, tools and practices of teaching (innovative interactive teaching techniques, ICT, digital storytelling) in order to improve the access and quality of education in relation to the diversity pattern which characterizes the schools. 2)encouraging coordination among the educational stakeholders of 5 different countries pertaining to different levels, such as schools, research centres, NGOs, educational department.
Therefore the project objectives were/are:
– Develop, adapt and transfer in classes an innovative model to add value to multilingualism in European school education systems thanks to actitivities link to digital story telling and online exhibition;
– Contribute to the professional development of primary and lower secondary school teachers, through focus group and questionnaires teachers recognized the importance of topic studied and the increase of their knowledge on multilingualism topic and digital tools.
– Develop innovative and personalized pedagogical approaches to promote educational success of students with migratory background giving regard to cultural and linguistic diversities and the development of transversal competences through digital media
– Promote positive interaction and active participation of foreign families. Parent were involve during focus group at the beginning of the project and during some activities realized in classroom following the practical didactic unit (IO2) and digital storytelling workshop (IO3).
To achieve this, VALUE worked with 1 hub school in Italy (1 primary and 1 middle), 8 hub schools in the Poland, 2 primary hub school in Cyprus, 1 primary school and 1 HE institution Spain, 1 educational department and 1 hub school in Germany to develop 5 high quality intellectual outputs that are innovative and relevant for target audiences in project countries and across the EU. These included innovative online support tools for teachers and students to use these approaches, an interactive sharing portal with learning paths, and academic reports.
The resulting outcomes were:
– Teachers using these approaches for new and engaging curriculum and pedagogical methods
– students using better quality processes for multilingual engagement in school, inspiring greater motivation and interest in languages and diversity
– Increased confidence of project staff to support teachers and students using these approaches in new ways
The impacts were so many but first of all:
A: STRENGHTENED PROFILE OF TEACHING PROFESSIONS and IMPROVED DIDACTIC (teachers had the oppurtunity to learn new tools like digital story telling and new methodology to teach a new topic like multilingualism (activities to upload, online toolkit(exhibition), online training)
B: ENHANCED INCLUSION children with immigrant background face significant challenges. Sometime they are really shy, they do not speak in classroom, they shame about their origin country and their performs are worse than other. During this 2 year and through feedback got from student and teachers Value was an opportunity to valorize their cultures and their languages, making them feel included into school and society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 283191,97 Eur

Project Coordinator

OXFAM ITALIA ONLUS & Country: IT

Project Partners

• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO “F.MOCHI”
• SPOLECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK
• FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN NUERNBERG
• UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET