European Commission - Lifelong Learning Programme
Grundtvig 2 Action - Agreement: n° 2008-1-IT2-GRU06-00532-1
Website address: www.languagesbysongs.eu
The point of departure for the not only didactic but also methodological idea is the use of music and songs in order to promote integration of immigrants and to increase plurilinguism both in the schools and in lifelong learning courses. This approach helps to support an age- and learner-appropriate language learning.
In order to encourage innovation in education and to facilitate the integration with a view to enhancing and improving communication and intercultural interaction and understanding, this project aims at producing, testing, optimising and evaluating teaching material for Italian, Russian and Romanian as foreign languages explicitly using songs, supported by audio-visual materials, multimedia and electronic communication.
The material, addressed to learners in the age of 16+, teachers of IT/RO/RU as a second language, people seeking employment abroad and to individuals providing tourist services, will be accessible through a web portal.
Other objectives are:
· to develop innovative ICT-based content, techniques and practice for lifelong learning;
· to transfer these methodological ideas in adult education to other contexts across Europe being music language universal;
· to improve quality and co-operation among organisations involved in adult education.
· to disseminate the results through conferences, the web sites of the partners and meetings at national and international events even outside the partner countries;
· to inform institutions, organisations and authorities involved in language teaching about the validity of such method and about the opportunity of implementing it in curricula;
· to promote on-line exchanges between experts from different countries
· submit a project proposal within Life Long Learning Programme aimed to build a portal for producing, testing, optimising and evaluating teaching material also for other languages as foreign languages explicitly using music.
With the view to establish cooperation among four organisations working in the field of adult education, the main activities of this two-year project (2008-2010) of Learning Partnership, are:
Creation of a web portal in three languages IT, RO, RU which will use interactive techniques and technologies for the management of video and audio streaming. The portal will consist of four parts:
a. Information – general info about the project, objectives, activities, partners and results of the project;
b. Teachers’ area containing: 1) methodological procedures on how to use the song in the classroom to learn a language and guidelines on how to use the didactic material and produce their own; 2) samples of exercises, activities and worksheets with practical suggestions for the language teachers; 3) worksheets sent by the teachers’ community;
c. Learners’ area containing: online samples of songs, video-karaoke, lyrics and lessons of diction that use the songs;
d. Links area containing links to relevant websites (language learning resources, language teaching with music support, radio and TV channels).
Development of the teaching/learning contents:
a. methodological frame, the introduction to the method, the formative and cognitive objectives;
b. elaboration of sample learning materials – themes, vocabulary, grammar content, tests on the language learning aimed at self-assessment of the results by the students, drills taking into consideration the use of karaoke;
c. translation of the contents into the target languages;
d. technical analysis of the linguistic input and defining technical specifications and requirements; development of software and graphic design; development of beta version of the learning units.
A plan for the dissemination of the results in order to make this approach adopted by a large number of teacher training institutions and schools and a strategy for sustainability and follow-up activities
Piloting in the partners’ countries:
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Choosing a suitable audience for piloting (schools and adult training centres etc.);§ Development of piloting schedule;
§ Piloting feedback and evaluation;
§ Improvement and finalizing of the product with the results of the experimentation.
A road show in an upper secondary school in Iasi to spread the project ideas and results.
The project is carried out by a multinational partnership including institutions from four countries: Bulgaria, Italy, Romania and Slovak:
Euroinform Ltd – Sofia, Bulgaria - is a company dealing with designing and introducing of modern teaching methods in adult training and language teaching. Among the main goals of the organisation there are development of motivation for language learning among adults, including learners with special education needs, with the view to improving their employability, soft skills training, development of and delivery of methodology and training of trainers in language learning and introducing of innovative methodologies in formal and non-formal education. The company cooperates with a number of educational establishments, adult training centres, language schools, etc. The organisation pays particular attention to providing for training needs of adult language learners with visual impairments and exploring and developing methods of teaching encouraging their creativity and motivation.
Federazione Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l’Europa – FENICE – Naples, Italy – a non-profit teacher association which supports any initiative favouring the integration of the intellectual resources of schools in the cultural growth of society, promotes and plans initiatives, training projects, refresher courses, the cultural improvement of teachers as well as research and experimentation in the teaching field, and takes part in the research and development of technologies aiming at making learning easier, education and vocational training more accessible thanks to the modern means of communication. Furthermore it publish a newspaper called «Scuol@Europa» sent to all the secondary schools of Italy and a newsletter sent out three times a year in three languages (IT, EN, FR) all over Europe to institutions and policy makers with information on its activities in transnational partnerships in European Projects (15 until now) with the aim to promote the products and the methods developed by transnational partnerships to a wider audience, and to encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences.
EuroEd Foundation – Iasi, Romania - is accredited by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research and is part of the national education system, the section Life Long Learning The Foundation is a founder member of QUEST (The Romanian Association for Quality Language Services) and QUEST is an associate member of EAQUALS (The European Association for Quality Language Services). In 1995 the Foundation became an International Language Centre and expanded their portfolio by founding a Kindergarten (1995) and a Primary School (1997). In 1998, also as a result of constantly growing services and addressability, were founded two more departments: the Regional Centre for Education and Communication and the Centre for European Integration. EuroEd is now the Regional Centre for Education and Communication (life long learning - adult education: local, regional, national and international professional training) and houses; The International Language Centre (foreign language course and Romanian as a foreign language), The Regional Centre for European Integration (the implementation of local, regional, national and international projects) and The EuroEd Kindergarten and Primary School. Furthermore EuroEd Foundation has its base in Iasi a city close to the border with Moldova and with close relation with institutions in it.
The E-KU Institute of Language and Intercultural Communication in Nitra, Slovakia is a language education provider, operating with any age groups interested in learning any of these languages: English, German, Italian, Russian, French, Spanish and Slovak for Foreigners. Therefore it is highly interested in implying new, modern and innovative teaching methods in its language programmes.
In addition to the above, there are as ASSOCIATED PARTNERS the following institutions which will play an active role in the Partnership:
"Galileo Ferraris" (Napoli - Italy): a State secondary technical school dealing with Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, provided of multimedia experts of ICT and technologies of management of sound and video (technical sound, video technician, web designer, web master, …) as well as of a laboratory equipped with necessary instrumentation for the accomplishment of the material sound and video.
“Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale” (Caserta – Italy) the branch of Ministry of education at provincial level. It coordinates the schools of each level in the province of Caserta (911 schools) in Campania Region.
“Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale” (Frosinone – Italy) the branch of Ministry of education at provincial level. It coordinates the schools of each level in the province of Frosinone (640 schools) in Lazio Region and a network of institutions for a local project aimed at integration of foreigners.
