EDUGATE – Multilingual teaching in early childhood education and care Erasmus Project

Project Title

EDUGATE – Multilingual teaching in early childhood education and care

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

EDUGATE project stands for Multilingual teaching in early childhood education and care and lasted 36 months, starting in September 2016. The project was aimed at improving ECEC teachers and educators’ competences for supporting pre-school education providers in adopting innovative pedagogical methodologies and in providing high-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). EDUGATE had the purpose of improving ECEC staff competences with particular reference to the teaching of a second language in the ECEC system. The cooperation was of 7 partner organisations from 6 countries: Italy (the LP, Municipality of Piacenza and the University of Milano-Bicocca), Czech Republic (ZA ANGEL), Latvia (Riga Municipality), Poland (Krasne Municipality), Slovenia (FINI Institute) & Sweden (University of Goteborg).
Partners participated in 2 Learning Teaching & Training Activities where they acquired new knowledge on the existing innovative practices for teaching second languages in the ECEC system. The 1st LTTA was organized in PRAGUE-CZ by ZS ANGEL from 9 to 13 October 2017, where the teachers were able to discuss the teaching methodologies working in transnational groups and where the teachers of ZS ANGEL have been able to show the best practices used in their ECEC services for the teaching of English. The 2nd LTTA was organized in PIACENZA-IT by the Municipality of Piacenza from 8 to 12 October 2018 in order to elaborate the didactic material drafted during IO4.

5 Intellectual Outputs were developed & finalized during the project:
O1 The Training Contexts and Need Map: a questionnaire was administered to 165 teachers and 182 parents in order to collect their opinion on the teaching of the second language in preschool and to identify the training needs of teachers. The result was that most of the teachers (74%) value in a positive way the learning of L2 starting from early infancy, because knowing more than one language encourages the discovery of the self, the other and of the world; moreover we discovered that most of parents (91%) listed only the possible benefits about learning a FL at an early age. The teachers’ training needs were identified in the following: a) intercultural communication b) valorisation of mother tongues c) adaptation strategies to the new environment for the newcomers d) speaking the local language.
O2 Innovative Best Practices: a collection of 35 innovative best practices regarding the teaching of a second language in ECEC services in Europe was finalized; in particular ‘The BP’s methodologies’, that focus on different aspects of language teaching. Three main areas can be identified: 1) methods for teaching 2) tools to create networks 3) language screening activity.
O3 Educational Programme & Workplan: the document contains descriptions of children learning a second or additional language and how such learning can be supported by early childhood education and care (ECEC). In addition, to provide a contextual setting, there are short descriptions of the curriculum for each partner country. In the final section of the study comprises conclusions and a debate related to learning in general and quality of education.
O4 Didactic Materials: this document consists in a series of didactic methodologies for children, inspired to the scientific literature about monolingual and multilingual child language development and implemented by the ECEC teachers and educators that took part to the EDUGATE project. Activities are designed to consolidate and enhance linguistic development in three areas: L1 (first language) enhancement; Foreign Language enhancement; Communication development.
O5 Guidelines for the New ECEC Professional Curricula: this document is aimed at offering a theoretical background regarding which linguistic competence should be developed by a child during pre-school years (1 to 6 years) and some practical examples of broad activities that would help the development of these specific language abilities for the second language acquisition. The objectives of the present document are: 1) to give a basic knowledge of the linguistic steps a child should attain in preschool years 2) to propose some activities with the purpose of enhancing these steps 3) to give some indication regarding the teacher’s role in a multilingual classroom.
Finally, project results and outputs have been disseminated through 7 multiplier events organized at international and national level, reaching about 400 people including ECEC services, ECEC teachers & educators, students, local authorities, families. Children & families benefit from trained highly qualified staff, as well as from new methods that foster children’s personal & social development and improve communication, cognitive and language skills, thus laying the foundation for children’s profitable long-life learning, especially for those coming from disadvantaged contexts.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 412827,58 Eur

Project Coordinator

Comune di Piacenza & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Zakladni skola a materska skola ANGEL v Praze 12
• Urzad Gminy Krasne
• RIGAS DOMES IZGLITIBAS KULTURAS UN SPORTA DEPARTAMENTS
• GOETEBORGS UNIVERSITET
• FINI zavod Radece, delo za mlade
• UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO-BICOCCA