Multilingual Families Clubs – Promoting Linguistic & Cultural Treasure of Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Multilingual Families Clubs – Promoting Linguistic & Cultural Treasure of 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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The EU, with its 500 million citizens, 28 Member States, 3 alphabets and 24 official languages is founded on ‘unity in diversity’: diversity of cultures, customs and beliefs – and of languages. Besides the 24 official languages of the Union, 60 other languages are also part of the EU’s heritage and are spoken in specific regions or by specific groups. In addition, immigrants brought a wide range of languages with them; it is estimated that at least 175 nationalities are now present within the EU’s borders.
There is a constant need to support the language learning needs of multilingual families in to European societies. The immense potential of multilingual families is an often underestimated and underused treasure as a way to maintain languages and cultures as a benefit for the Europe.
To reach that goal, the project partnership, consisting of organisations from Poland, Italy, Czech, UK and Turkey merged their collective experience and specific skills in the field of multicultural education.
‘MULTILINGUAL FAMILIES CLUB’ idea is based on the experience of similar institutions that established and were successfully run across developed countries in western Europe. Through the use of the resources, the project was going to develop a comprehensive set of tools for:
– successful establishing and running of a multilingual club in the countries of EU and worldwide
– activities and games for children and parents designed specifically to promote multilingualism, multiculturalism and to enhance the competences of children and parents in mutual dialogue with others in their languages
– methodical guiding for the organizers of the clubs (primary schools, NGOs, leisure time centres, etc.), how to run a club on a daily basis
– raising awareness of multilingualism among parents and education institutions in the region.
The project contributed to preserve languages and culture of immigrants living in the EU and promoting multilingualism among the European society twofold:
a) at the organisational level of institutions working with multilingual families (through adult educators, trainers and other stakeholders) for whom following tools were prepared:
– Manual for Adult Educators (IO1) with tips on successful establishing and running multilingual club in the countries of Europe and worldwide;
– Repository of Activities for Families (IO2) – activities and games for children and parents designed specifically to promote multilingualism and to enhance the competences of children and parents in mutual dialogue with others in their languages;
– Methodological Guide for Adult Educators (IO3) with guidelines how to encourage and show parents, how to raise their children multilingual in an informal setting;
– ‘Multilingual Families ‘In-Service Training Programme and on-line Webinar (IO6) – to teach adult educators interested in supporting multilingual families in developing their linguistic and cultural potential how to do it professionally with the use of high quality materials developed in that project. Additionally 8 additional webinars were recorded under this result showing a broader view of the issue of multilingualism in the European environment, as well as in the aspect of virtual contacts.

b) at the direct beneficiaries’ level of parents with multilingual background. The parents were provided with supporting materials answering the following key questions:
– WHY should we support children’s learning and continuing use of various languages, especially languages of the family?
– WHAT can we as parents do to support children in multilingualism?
– HOW do we implement real language support so that they learn the family or other languages and retain them?
Stakeholders as well as target group’s members were offered:
– Parents’ Guide On How To Motivate And Engage Children To Use Multiple Languages (IO4) – help to understand why growing up with two or more languages is beneficial and can be a great advantage for children.
The outputs were translated to 5 languages and up to 15 predominant migrant languages in partner countries to permit the widest dissemination including LWULT.
The project was also enriched by ‘Audio-Visual Learning Scenarios on Multilingualism Within the Family’ (IO5) – video testimonials of families successfully bringing up their children multilingual as well as representatives of organisations supporting such families in strengthening their multilingual potential. Additionally a social network of all interested in multilingualism was created and moderated what allowed sharing experience, answering FAQ related with raising multilingual family and good practices.
All materials will be Open Educational Resources (OER) freely accessible. For better sustainability of all produced results will be available at project website at least 5 years after the project end.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 279682,26 Eur

Project Coordinator

SPOLECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK & Country: PL

Project Partners

• ANKARA MILLI EGITIM MUDURLUGU
• Associazione INNOVAMENTIS
• Fundacja Understanding
• MBM Training and Development Center
• Jazykova skola s pravem statni jazykove zkousky PELICAN, s.r.o.