Multilingualism for a Sustainable Society Erasmus Project

Project Title

Multilingualism for a Sustainable Society

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The aim of the project was to cooperate and share practice to strengthen the study of L3 (the third language after mother tongue L1 and English L2) at upper secondary school level, the digital skills and employability among students. To strengthen the study of languages the focus was placed on motivation among students, teachers and teacher-trainees.

As springboard for the project there was the work of professor Dylan Wiliam, “Assessment for Learning”, which focuses on cooperative learning where teachers and students are resources for learning from each other. This idea was implemented in the project. Teacher – teacher, teacher – student and student – student, to reach the goals of achieving and promoting skills and competences in languages other than English in the digital era.

The EU’s multilingualism goals, the “Europe 2020 strategy”, the “UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030” and “Ten commandments for motivating language learners: results from an empirical study” (Dörnyei and Csizér, Language Teaching Research, 1998) were the overall themes for the project and the activities created.

Through the transnational network created and the methods chosen the project participants met in workshops to create, test and evaluate stimulating and motivating activities in L3 learning and teaching. The visiting teachers tested the created activities in language classes at the school organising the workshops before they went home to practice in their own schools. The lessons were also evaluated by the test group to improve the activities. All activities can be found in open access on the website created for the project, in French, German, Spanish, and English, as part of the idea of sustainability in education.

Target groups for the project were students, teachers and teacher-training students of L3 French, German and Spanish at upper secondary school level, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages levels A2-B2.

Partner organisations were 4 upper secondary schools, in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Sweden, supported by the fifth partner organisation of the Centre for Languages and Literature at Lund University.

Selection criteria for the schools were to teach L3 French, German and Spanish at levels A2-B2 and to have a connection with a university and/or a teacher-training school. Lund University was a partner because of the exchange with Gymnasieskolan Spyken in terms of teacher-training students and teacher development, current and possible future research in the fields of language study and educational sciences. Once the project began, the levels of language were set at A2-B1, due to the levels involved in the LTT activities. These are the language levels set in the lesson plans.

The students of L3 were involved in the project at different levels. An inventory of what was considered motivating and stimulating activities was made before the beginning of the project by asking the students of their experiences. Students were part of the local project teams and had the possibility to be active participants in the transnational activities sharing an important experience of the implementation of the created activities and their evaluation with the project teams. The Erasmus students held inspirational presentations connected to the project to student groups at their home schools and at the visited schools, all in the languages learned.

The project aimed at reaching students who were studying to become teachers and teachers working with teacher training, to inspire them to create networks with schools in other countries and thus continue the idea of this project. Although the systems of teacher education vary between the partner countries, the project reached students in internship at the school, a language assistant, organisers of teacher training and university teachers.

The Centre for Languages and Literature of Lund University brought expertise in language study and educational sciences. This partner served as an anchor in current and possible future research and teacher education. As such, it encouraged the process of the project, assisted in the choice of methods and evaluated the process as well as the final result of the project together with the partner organisations.

This project lasted for three years and included three transnational project meetings and several more meetings over the internet. 5 transnational workshop/learning activities were organised and the 6th and last had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. Each partner school was responsible for two events, LTT and/or TPM. Collaboration was achieved not only within each target language, but between the languages French, German and Spanish, with the help of English as lingua franca when necessary. Teachers cooperated during the workshops and between the LTTs, over the internet, in practising the created lesson plans in their own schools and over borders in the partner schools. Students were co-working within their school Erasmus teams and during the learning activities with students at the partner schools. Thus, the project has reached at least a 1 000 people during the 3-year-period, and will continue to be disseminated in the future.

Results:
1/ A website of open access, to be seen as the official site of the project together with the Twinspace on eTwinning, including:
– the bank of created lessons
– the lectures on motivational strategies
– the UN goals 2030
– the EU goal 2020
– the activities organised by the project
– the MadMagz online magazines for each LTT
– examples of dissemination activities
– a link to the project’s TwinSpace on eTwinning
– links to the Facebook group, the Youtube channel and the blog created by Italy

2/ Madmagz online magazines:
– one for each LTT, describing the activities

3/ A Facebook group “Multilingualism for a Sustainable Society”:
– for teachers to share ideas and tips, and for the project to spread its results

4/ A Youtube channel “Multilingualism for a Sustainable Society”:
– for the group to publish films created or used during the project

5/ A blog:
– newsletters were published with information about activities in the project and the blog evolved into containing a variety of the language lessons, but it is not to be seen as a full coverage of the project.

6/ A Twinspace on the eTwinning platform, to be seen as the official site on eTwinning:
– served as means of communication through forums and video conferences
– the bank of created lessons
– the bank of lectures on motivational strategies by Céline Rocher-Hahlin
– information about the LTTs / TPMs
– a separate TwinSpace for students was created to prepare for the LTTs and during them. It is no longer in use.

7/ WhatsApp groups for immediate communication for teachers and students.

The project has had the following impact
1/ on a local level:
– improved cooperation and shared practice within the schools between the language teachers and between students and teachers.
– improved collaboration and shared practice between the local upper secondary schools
– improved collaboration with local teacher education and universities.
– the UN goals for 2030 have been established as an overall agenda for the schools in Italy and Portugal. In Germany, a team for environmental issues has been created. The Swedish school had just launched the overall agenda of implementing the UN goals in all parts of the education when the project was outlined fro the start. Therefore they are cornerstones of this project.
– improved knowledge about motivation to study languages thanks to the involvement of students and their input on what motivating language lessons are, and the lectures and guidance of Lund University – Céline Rocher Hahlin – through the motivational strategies of Dörnyei and Csizér.
– increased interest in studying the L3 on higher levels at our schools has been identified.

2/ on a national level:
– a research project by the team member in Sweden, Lena Osvaldsson, who has published, presented and will present, during 2020-21, at conferences, a report from a survey among students of French, German and Spanish at Gymnasieskolan Spyken regarding motivation in language learning. It has been distributed to all school leaders in the municipality and will soon be available to anyone via www.lund.se.
– the project has been invited to inspire teachers in Sweden on a national level, at the conference of “School Ambassadors for the EU” and on the platform for the Swedish National Agency, UHR.
– the partners of the project have been invited to the Didactic seminars of Lund University, where research and experience in language learning served as a hub for students who will be language teachers met experienced language teachers for discussions about didactics, during LTT Lund 2019 and the Swedish team will hold a lecture about the project on November 11, 2020.

3/ on a European level:
– initiation of new networks, to cooperate and share practice, between the teachers of German, Spanish and French of the project.
– the project has given Lund University the valuable opportunity to spread internationally results from research with regard to language teachers’ work and interest in the upper secondary school.
– the researcher at Lund University, Céline Rocher-Hahlin, has in the project worked closely with the international teacher teams and thus implemented the results of her research in several European classrooms.
– the TwinSpace project applied for the Quality Label on eTwinning and was granted the label in Portugal.
– the project has applied for a European Quality Label for Language Teaching.
– cooperation through working together in a project is part of the European idea to support understanding and to prevent war.
– opening the possibility to work over borders and learn from each other thanks to the exchange experience and knowledge of languages.
– the contacts may lead to new cooperations, where there are concrete plans for and ICT project between the German and Swedish partners, and future research projects, which would be beneficial for the schools as well as the universities.

The overall impact of the project can be summarized in the words of a student: “Never could I imagine being taught French by a Portuguese teacher in Germany. It was possible and was an interesting experience”.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 139210 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnasieskolan Spyken & Country: SE

Project Partners

• LICEO STATALE “G. MARCONI”
• LUNDS UNIVERSITET
• Agrupamento de Escolas Latino Coelho, Lamego
• Erzbischöfliches St. Irmengard-Gymnasium