Project Newsletter Issue 3 – March 2024

Welcome to the third newsletter in three languages (IT, PT, EN) devoted to the project "Romance Languages for Slavic-Speaking University Students”, (LMOOC4Slav) funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, Action KA2 Strategic partnership for higher education.

We wish to keep a wider audience up–to-date with the results, materials and developments in language teaching and to tell them more about the LMOOC4Slav project thus hoping to encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences as well as a productive collaboration.

You can read this newsletter also on www.lmooc4slav.eu or www.fenice-eu.org/ 

The results of the LMOOC4Slav project

The LMOOC4Slav project offers Slavic L1 students a freely accessible online learning path taking into account their specific needs to face university studies in Italy or Portugal. It therefore has created two MOOCs (free online courses) of Italian and Portuguese academics and Open Educational Resources to facilitate the immersion of Slavonic-speaking students in mobility (Erasmus and others) in the Italian or Portuguese university system. The language of academic communication has its own characteristics and requires particular skills and abilities. Academic Italian and Portuguese MOOCs will enable the development of such linguistic and intercultural skills and abilities, as well as strategies that will make students better aware of how to learn new languages and how to learn effectively in the academic context (e.g. how to write expositive and argumentative texts, how to transcode images or graphics, how to take notes, how to take an oral exam).

Each MOOC, accessible to those who have reached at least the B1 level of the CEFR in Italian/ Portuguese, has a duration of 6 weeks and includes 6 modules, consisting of short videos and various activities. The videos feature testimonies from students, administrative staff and teachers and illustrate some academic specificities. Participants will be asked to make short oral and written productions, some of which will be evaluated by other participants in the MOOC (optional peer review). The results of the various activities and the end of module quizzes will be used to issue a certificate of passing. More information is available at: https://learn.eduopen.org/course/index.php So far, three editions have been issued for each MOOC. The fourth edition began on 25 February for Italian and 18 March for Portuguese. You can still subscribe to the current edition of both MOOCs. After the closure of the project there will be two editions per MOOC each year, one around October 15 and the other around March 15. To register (free of charge): https://learn.eduopen.org/

In addition to the two MOOCs, more than 120 Open Educational Resources have been created for Italian and Portuguese teachers and students such as FL. The resources, downloadable from the project portal (https://www.lmooc4slav.eu ), include video recordings with transcripts, written texts on academic topics related to different disciplinary fields and "ready-to-use" learning units. A Teaching Guide, available in Italian and Portuguese, is also being finalised and can be used as a teaching plan to be followed, or as a bank of tools and resources available with the possibility of adapting them to differentiated needs, selecting those that are of particular interest, or looking for a personal way to integrate them into teaching practices.

Finally, the next publication at the Perugia Stranieri University Press (https://www.unistrapg.it/node/463) a volume containing a selection of research articles written by participants at the two international conferences held in Porto and Naples and selected with a peer review. The volume, currently being printed, has open access and has an ISBN and is valid as a scientific publication for all authors. The presentation of the volume will take place during a public event that will be held on 19/04/24 at the University for Foreigners of Perugia in Piazza Fortebraccio, 4. 

Second International Conference in Naples

On 28 and 29 September 2023, the National Federation of Teachers Initiative Centre for Europe, partner of the project, organized at the University of Naples "L'Orientale" the second international conference on "MOOC linguistics and OER: new trends and challenges". In addition to the two speeches in plenary by the invited speakers, 62 linguists from 35 universities (including 11 Italian) and three institutions presented 47 contributions.

The conference allowed 105 participants to:

• create links for future cooperation with researchers from 18 countries: Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, North Macedonia, Mauritius, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey;
• learn in 15 thematic sessions about new approaches in language teaching and learning, academic mobility, linguistic diversity, language for specific purposes, self-directed learning and the support that MOOCs and other tools can provide to encourage it..

The interested speakers then sent their full papers which were reviewed by the Scientific Committee in a double blind review. The selected works have been included in the Proceedings of the Conferences LMOOC4Slav published in an open access volume with ISBN. For more information on the conference, please visit https://www.lmooc4slav.eu/conferences.php .

LMOOC4Slav in Europe

LMOOC4Slav at the Festival of Europe 2023 in Florence, Italy
The National Agency ERASMUS+INDIRE has judged the project "Romance languages for university students of Slavic language" as good practice on a continental scale on the theme of inclusion and invited the coordinator of the project Professor Borbala Samu of the University for Foreigners of Perugia has illustrated it during the Festival of Europe 2023, May 5, 2023.

LMOOC4Slav at the University of Podgorica, Montenegro
On 23/06/2023 Professor Borbala Samu of the University for Foreigners of Perugia presented the project and the Open Educational Resources (OER) created within the project and addressed to Slavic-Speaking university students of Slavic language in the presence of the Italian ambassador and 80 professors and researchers of the University.

LMOOC4Slav at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania
On 11/05/2023, Professor Fátima Silva of the University of Porto presented the MOOC of Portuguese for Slavic language university students.

LMOOC4Slav at the University of Porto, Portugal
From 12 to 16/06/23, Professors Isabel Duarte and Fátima Silva and Dr Ângela Carvalho held an intensive module on the theme "Learning academic Portuguese, as LS, through a MOOC."

LMOOC4Slav at Lancaster University, United Kingdom
On 13/07/2023 Professors Isabel Duarte and Fátima Silva from the University of Porto presented a paper entitled "Exploring the potential of audio-visual material in linguistic MOOCs: a case study of a Portuguese academic language course" during L2P@L 2023, an international conference focusing on Portuguese as an additional language organised by the Heritage Language 2 Consortium and the Camões Cátedra for Multilingualism of the University of Lancaster.

LMOOC4Slav at the international music festival Colours of Ostrava, Czech Republic
On 15/07/2023 Professor Iva Svobodová of Masaryk University interviewed the Brazilian composer and singer Gilberto Gil. The interview was included in a Portuguese OER.

LMOOC4Slav at the University of West Saxony, Zwickau, Germany
On 21/09/2023 Professor Isabel Duarte of the University of Porto presented the project and the Open Educational Resources of Portuguese created as part of the project and addressed to Slavic-Speaking university students during the 15th German Congress of Lusitanists.

LMOOC4Slav at Saint Cyril and Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
On 7/11/2023 Dr Natalia Czopek and Anna Dyda of the Jagiellonian University presented the project to teachers and students of Italian and Portuguese as FL.

LMOOC4Slav at the International Association of Paremiology in Tavira (Algarve, Portugal)
On 13/11/2023 Professor Iva Svobodová of Masaryk University presented the project during the 14th international conference on the study of proverbs.  

This project has been funded with the financial support of the European Union’s ERASMUS + Programme. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. If you do not wish to receive any more emails, please answer to this email writing as subject REMOVE.