Supporting non-professional teachers to introduce migrants and refugees to national languages Erasmus Project

Project Title

Supporting non-professional teachers to introduce migrants and refugees to national languages

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

Improving access to adult learning for migrants, as well as learning provision for refugees and people seeking asylum, including host country-language learning, are main priorities for the EU. Migrants and refugees need language. However, it takes a long time until they live in an environment in which systematic learning of the language is possible or until they have access to proper language courses. This is where the many volunteers and tutors from NGOs who also assist migrants and refugees with language learning have a part to play.

Lay Teachers are nonprofessional instructors who are not certified or fully trained according to the standards of the area or country. “The Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants” report of the Counc. of Europe (2017) provide some recommendations regarding the role of lay teachers supporting linguistic integration of migrants. They should not be required to teach as if they had gone through teacher training. What is needed for this task is not a “light” version of teaching methodology, as if the volunteers were expected exactly to imitate language courses, for which they have not been trained.

Lay teachers can avoid the usual traps for professional teachers giving school-type language classes for refugees. This open thus the path for pedagogical innovation. They can set up also non-conventional learning environments, like non-formal and informal learning. Some traditional teaching didactics dont take specific needs of adult migrants and refugees learners into account. Available programmes do not fit all populations. In contrast, participatory didactic methods have shown good progress in learners who have not profited from formal teaching. Active pedagogies such as relating lessons to real life, individualisation, self-directed work and collaborative learning are among the pedagogies with the strongest evidence in favour of their effectiveness on the basis of the literature review.

The pressure on national response capacities to assist migrants and refugees, limited resources of NGOs to attend the demand and long time to access to systematic and proper language courses has placed volunteers as Lay Teachers of language learning for migrants and refugees. Nevertheless, as non-professional teachers, they usually lack previous training on educators’ competence. Furthermore, refugees and certain types of migrants present very particular and challenging characteristics that require not an ordinary language courses but an initial introduction to the national language or ad hoc language support though non-conventional effective teaching methods, adapted to the specific needs of this target group.

The aim of LAY TEACHERS project was supporting non-professional teachers, also known as Lay Teachers, as volunteers who collaborate with adult education providers and civil society organisations who assist migrants and refugees, supporting them with innovative non-conventional teaching learning methods and resources, like Cooperative learning and contextual Meaning-based learning, tailor made to introduce refugees to the national languages.

6 organizations supporting the linguistic integration of adult migrants in 5 countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, Romania and Ireland) have worked together co-creating and testing innovative methods and freely accessible OER, including a Training Curriculum (IO1) an Online Platform of OER (IO2) and Guidelines and recommendations (IO3) on Introducing migrants and refugees to national languages in Adult Education. Non-professional teachers and volunteers working with adult education providers and civil society organisations were the main target users of the project products and final beneficiaries were migrants and refugees. During the life time of LAY TEACHERS project, the partnership has directly involved 115 Non-professional teachers and volunteers (40 partners staff / 35 experts involved / 40 target users in pilots), 100 migrant, refugee and asylum seeker (in pilots) and 442 stakeholders. A wider audience of 30.429 recipients has been reached at local, regional, national and European level through the planned dissemination activities.

The project has used European frameworks and instruments, like EQF Europass and EPALE, to boost transparency and recognition of learning outcomes on innovative non-conventional teaching-learning methods and tailor-made resources to introduce migrants and refugees to the national languages in Europe, with the support and cooperation of a network of key associated partners and relevant stakeholders at local, regional, national and European level involved in the project. LAY TEACHERS has had a direct impact on target beneficiaries, improving their second language skills, and in the target users, improving the teaching methods on teaching language for migrants and refugees. The long-term impact envisaged is a growing participation these collectives in lifelong learning and in society in Europe

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 127290 Eur

Project Coordinator

INSTITUTO PARA EL FOMENTO DEL DESARROLLO Y LA FORMACION SL & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Asociación La Bien Pagá Espacio Escénico
• INNOQUALITY SYSTEMS LIMITED
• CENTRUL PENTRU PROMOVAREA INVATARII PERMANENTE TIMISOARA ASOCIATIA
• CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE PER LA PROMOZIONE DELL’EDUCAZIONE E LO SVILUPPO ASSOCIAZIONE
• IASIS