Let’s Act Multilingual Erasmus Project

Project Title

Let’s Act Multilingual

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Gender equality / equal opportunities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The purpose of our project is to revamp and strengthen language teaching in schools through artistic practice, more specifically theatre performance, and to give visibility and value to linguistic and cultural diversity in schools and in the peri-educational field through multilingual creative practice, thus giving schools an active role in creating safe and creative spaces for intercultural dialogue, and fostering better understanding between communities.
The partners in the project are schools, universities, and artistic or educational organisations active in one of the relevant fields, associated with policy-makers in education / immigrant integration, and local and regional authorities.
The project (September 2020-December 2022) will be developed over a period of two academic years by beneficiary partners from France, Germany, Serbia, and Spain. With the first year mostly focusing on formalizing methods and sharing approaches among teachers and trainers, and designing a pilot project, the second year being devoted to the implementation of the pilot project. An additional three months will be used to collect and assess results, and share them with relevant stake holders.
The languages involved in the project will be European languages taught by teachers and trainers in the consortium, non-European languages also taught in these organisations (Arabic mostly), and both European and Non-European languages spoken by communities living in the environment of these organisations (Arabic dialects, Amazigh, Maltese, Roma, Turkish, and more).
The pilot project will culminate in a multilingual performance, which will be prepared and rehearsed through virtual and physical mobilities throughout the project, mostly in its second phase. Each country will be responsible for a minimum of one 15-30 minute module, and one local performance of their module(s). The final event at the end of the second academic year will bring together all countries and participants for several common performances.
The theme of the multilingual performance is « Femmes de l’Ombre » (Women in the Shadows), focusing on women who contributed significantly in a number of fields, but were little or never known for their achievements, in recent and more ancient European history. Each participant or group will choose one of these women in the linguistic area corresponding to the language(s) they are teaching / working with, and work on collecting material and dramatizing that material, so this female figure can become one of the « characters » in the show. Any minority language present in the environment but not included in the practice and brainstorming on teaching methods will be included in the final show in the form of a vast multilingual chorus demonstrating the universal value and aesthetic potential of linguistic diversity.
Not only will this theme raise awareness on an important gender-related issue, but it will do so while making participants aware of a shared history and heritage. It will allow involving in the project other teachers (of art, literature, cinema, physics, maths, biology, history), and professionals (video artists, sound and light technicians, graphic and augmented reality designers, musicians, public relations and communication specialists, event security organizers, etc) and encourage mutualisation and exchanges of good and innovative practices within each participating organisation, each national cluster, and at the transnational level.
The teaching methods designed in the project, and tested and assessed throughout and after the bulk of activities, will be formalized and written out in the main languages of the project. The goal of participating organisations is to produce shareable and sustainable pedagogical and business models for the teaching of / in foreign languages in schools in cooperation with cultural / artistic organisations, and to advocate for this model to be disseminated throughout Europe and beyond, in order to raise the attractiveness and efficiency of language teaching in the educational and peri-educational sectors.
Analyzing and experimenting with both formally taught languages and home languages will allow participants to build on existing expertise and share recommendations and methods to make sure learners’ language competencies are fully explored and promoted, and in the case of immigrant families, that their bilingual home environment is fully used as an asset, and not an obstacle, to their language-learning situation.
The visibility and support given to linguistic diversity and multilingual practice in the project is also meant to achieve other results, namely a better understanding between communities in a given territory, and a tighter and more confident relation between schools and students’ families. And allowing local and regional entities to rely fully on educational and artistic organisations for a constructive dialogue on multicultural and multilingual practices and issues.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 277314 Eur

Project Coordinator

lycée Frédéric et Irène Joliot-Curie & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Cours et Jardins gUG
• Gimnazija Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj
• FUNDACION TEATRO JOVEN
• ASSOCIATION COMPAGNIE L’INSTANT MEME
• Colegios Laude S.L.U.
• Compagnie Théâtre du Bout Monde
• BAZAART