Traveler between wor(l)ds: Interactive App for fostering reading Competence of multilingual Pupils Erasmus Project

Project Title

Traveler between wor(l)ds: Interactive App for fostering reading Competence of multilingual Pupils

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: Migrants’ issues; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The main goal of the project was to develop didactic materials which would motivate multilingual children to practice their reading and writing skills in all their languages in order to help close the gap between the vocabulary of the school and home languages. In order to reach this goal an application for tablets called “Kuarki – Traveller between wor(l)ds” was developed. The app is a collection of witty illustrated stories, divided into 4 overall topics: Space, Earth, Life and The human being. The stories are based on topics ranging from biology, geography to physics and their objective is to provide a wholesome look at how knowledge is connected and intertwined. They are based on 36 questions, which often occupy children’s imagination, such as “Why are the oceans salty?”, “Why do I forget some things and others I don’t?” or “How old is the Universe?”. The stories address the reader directly, and invite him/her to join Kuarki on his journey through different worlds. Witty tone of the stories and illustrations make reading a fun experience. Each story ends with exercises which help children revise the new words and check the understanding of the texts.

While reading the texts, children can switch between languages or check the meaning of new words in their school language, in which they are likely to already know the word. The app is currently available in 10 languages – Croatian, English, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian and Turkish – which can be combined as needed for each child. Translation to further languages is planned for the future. This free educational application is suitable for iPads and different Android tablets. Due to large pictures and longer texts the application was not conceived for smartphones and does not work on them. The app is unique in its approach and represents a valuable tool for European parents and teachers. We combined the know-how of different institutions and individuals to form a fruitful collaboration between professionals writing literature for children, educators and linguists as well as app developers. During the development of the app, we involved our target groups in all relevant phases of the project. The result is a high-quality and innovative app, full of funny and informative stories, beautiful illustrations and language learning exercises. The collaboration between writers and educators ensures the usability of the app not only at homes across the world but also in schools – to foster language skills and multiliteracy of multilingual children, provide CLIL materials for foreign language learning, and motivate for learning natural sciences.

The web portal kids.lingvo.info, available in ten languages, complements our application. The site was created to promote the app as well as multilingual education in general. It contains information about the benefits of multilingual teaching at home and at school, didactic-methodological advice on using the app in classroom, collection of activities related to children’s multilingualism which can be implemented during school lessons, tips for teachers and parents on how to implement multilingual education, and useful links to European multilingual projects and resources. The project has therefore contributed to new developments in the field of ICT-based language learning and digital reading.

The App and the web portal were developed by a partnership of eight European organizations from different sectors: three schools, a university, a company in the culture and education sector, a new media agency, an international NGO and a public relations agency. The partners come from the following five countries: Germany, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The project was based on the need to create an interesting and innovative tool to promote multi-literacy among multilingual children. Partners have been highly motivated to develop the tools, having worked for many years in language education, language promotion and development of various activities to promote multilingualism and support multilingual families.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 260071,13 Eur

Project Coordinator

STUDIO GAUS GMBH & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Liceul Teoretic “Nikolaus Lenau”
• UNIVERZA V MARIBORU
• E@I
• INTER-KULTURO MEDNARODNI KULTURNO IZOBRAZEVALNI CENTER DOO
• Klaipedos Hermano Zudermano gimnazija
• Mediaost Events und Kommunikation GmbH
• Lew-Tolstoi-Schule