Teacher Education About Multilingualism Erasmus Project

Project Title

Teacher Education About Multilingualism

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries

Project Summary

The project “Teacher Education About Multilingualism” (henceforth TEAM) aims to educate pre-service and in-service teachers in HEI settings about various aspects of multilingualism and bilingualism (the term bilingualism will be used to capture both). Basic and up-to-date knowledge about bilingualism is often missing from teacher training curricula in HEIs across Europe, bilingualism often being mentioned in the context of educating students with special educational needs. This situation is unsatisfactory in present-day Europe, where migration both within the EU and from non-EU countries is a major contributor to demographic change. Teachers who have been working in previously homogeneous communities are increasingly more likely to have students with the experience of migration in their classrooms, both migrants and re-emigrants. Against this background, it is vitally important to provide teachers and future teachers, as well as other education professionals, with basic knowledge about bilingualism and multilingualism in the context of education.

Therefore, TEAM aims to:
1. strengthen the professional training of teachers and other educators in HEIs by preparing them to better deal with linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom,
2. prepare teachers and other educators to better respond to the needs of students with migration backgrounds by making their teaching more socially relevant and inclusive,
3. improve the quality of academic instruction by creating a new interdisciplinary course curriculum and teaching resources linking teacher training with relevant and up-to-date bilingualism research.

In order to meet these objectives TEAM will develop an innovative and flexible course and an open education resource that will make state-of-the-art, research-based knowledge about bilingualism available to pre-service and in-service teachers in HEIs. To bring research results into the classroom, audiovisual learning materials will be prepared in the form of interviews with leading researchers in the field of bilingualism, along with accompanying learning activities. The materials will be used either as a separate course, or to complement existing modules and courses at partner universities in both traditional classroom and/or blended-learning environments. Once all the learning materials and activities are classroom-tested, an open education resource of teaching materials and learning activities will be created and made available to students and academic instructors, practicing teachers, other education professionals (e.g. educational psychologists, speech therapists, counsellors) as well as other interested stakeholders (e.g. parents of bilingual children). To ensure high quality of the final course and the TEAM resource, all the learning materials and activities, as well as the TEAM open education resource, will be externally peer-reviewed by experienced university teachers and bilingualism researchers from partner universities across the Bilingualism Matters network.

It is estimated that ca. 500 students will take the course at partner universities as either an obligatory part of their teacher training or as an elective during the project lifetime and the course will be incorporated into teacher training curricula after the project’s completion. Well over 300 academic instructors, teachers and other education professionals are to be involved in multiplier events run in 9 countries. The TEAM open education resource will be made available freely to students, academic instructors and other education professionals and stakeholders beyond the current partnership.

Through educating teachers, TEAM aims to promote informed attitudes and approaches towards bilingualism in education, which should lead to more informed decision-making at all stages of education and in a variety of educational contexts, which in turn should increase educational opportunities of children with the experience of migration and should facilitate integration of migrants into their recipient communities in the longer term.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 436972 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIWERSYTET IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU & Country: PL

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITAT KONSTANZ
• UNIVERSITA PER STRANIERI DI SIENA
• SVEUCILISTE U RIJECI
• UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLONSKI
• BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY
• ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
• THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH