Pluriwell has entered a new phase of farther-reaching and more decentralized work on plurilingual wellbeing. Teachers in schools around Europe are continuing to collaborate to advance the aims of this ECML project. Teams in 10 different European countries are already coming together to create new tools to foster plurilingual wellbeing in their respective contexts.

Many of the teachers participating  in these local working groups attended the Pluriwell network meeting in October, but others did not. “This phase of the project is a chance for the network meeting participants to share the insights from the meeting in Graz with their colleagues at home, and then for them all to be able to take on an active role in promoting plurilingual wellbeing,” said project coordinator Caterina Sugranyes. 

Local groups of teachers are following the phases set out in the pathway to develop plurilingual wellbeing orienting tools, a guide that was created by the project partners and shared with the rest of the network in Graz. “We are thinking about what plurilingual wellbeing means for us and what strategies and resources we can use as teachers,” said Estel Toruella, a Barcelona-based teacher. “We are also reflecting on the languages that we know and those that surround us,” she added.

 “The pathway document gives our participants around Europe a framework for how to work toward their own contributions,” said Sugranyes. However, the experience in Graz itself also serves as a helpful blueprint for teachers working with their colleagues at home. The meeting at the ECML premises was “beneficial to the development of the knowledge and skills needed to stimulate reflection by teachers,” said Eabele Tjepkema of the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. 

In an upcoming online meeting in December, the teachers will share their tools with the rest of the Pluriwell network. This will be an opportunity to give and receive feedback and make changes and improvements. It will also be a chance to see how the different language combinations and conditions in different places inform teachers’ approaches to plurilingual wellbeing. “One of the main focuses of this project is on valuing the specificity of different teachers’ language identities,” said Sugranyes. “That is why it will be exciting to see what kinds of tools emerge in different contexts, and to investigate what we can learn from local concerns that might also be relevant elsewhere.”

Caterina Sugrañes (project coordinator), Latisha Mary, Gerit Jaritz, Karen Aarøe

• See also
  The plurilingual wellbeing flower
  The languages of PLURIWELL
  Schools across Europe actively involved in the PLURIWELL project
  Dissemination activities of the Pluriwell project
  on ECML/CELV > ECML-Programme > Programme 2024-2027 > Plurilingual wellbeing > Recent developments
• ECML project website “Pluriwell – Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers” (2024-26) (available in English and French) : www.ecml.at/pluriwell

The ECML-funded Pluriwell project hosted its inaugural network meeting on October 1 and 2. A total of 22 participants from 10 countries attended the event at ECML headquarters in Graz. The gathering was an opportunity to share and showcase the ideas that the Pluriwell project team has been developing over the past year, but, to an even greater extent, it was a chance to put these ideas into practice with the help of a diverse group of committed teachers and other collaborators.

Because the project is aimed at fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of teachers around Europe, Pluriwell’s approach is necessarily rooted in the everyday experiences of teachers. To gain a broad perspective on teachers’ views of plurilingualism, the project invited active teachers from around Europe. Primary and secondary school teachers were joined by teacher training experts. They all offered insights into teachers’ views of plurlingual education and the kinds of concerns educators experience, some that reflected the specificities of their regional and national contexts and others that were more widely shared.

While it was important for the project leaders to share some of the theoretical foundations of plurilingual wellbeing, equally critical was creating a space where this wellbeing could emerge in the context of the meeting itself. The event was plurilingual in practice, as it was held in several different languages, and the organisers sought to ensure that everyone felt linguistically at ease, regardless of their proficiency in English, French or the other languages present. For many of the participants, it was energising and refreshing to be in friendly and professional international environment with so many other teachers. “It was a rare opportunity to be a part of a group of active teachers from all over, where everyone was equally dedicated, from the project team to all the participants,” said Sanja Bogojević, an Italian language teacher from Montenegro who attended the meeting. Indeed, one of the most unusual elements of the project is that it brings together working teachers, many of whom are not often involved in such international forums.

“This was a network meeting in the truest sense of the word,” said project coordinator Caterina Sugranyes. “We are thrilled to have left Graz having made strong connections and really having formed a team of teachers and professionals who are committed to helping others overcome some of the challenges they face in plurilingual education.” Indeed, the teachers who attended the meeting will be deeply involved in the project moving forward, as they will be continuing the transformative work of creating tools for plurilingual wellbeing with colleagues in their respective countries.

Caterina SUGRANYES, Latisha MARY, Gerit JARITZ, Karen AARØE

The ECML-funded project PLURIWELL is moving forward into a new, farther-reaching phase, as the project leaders and other participants prepare for the first network meeting, which will be hosted by the ECML in Graz from 30 September  to 2 October. The meeting will mark the formal launch of the project’s efforts this year to share and explore the concept of plurilingual wellbeing. The coming academic year will culminate in the creation of a collection of plurilingual-wellbeing-oriented tools.

Together with the ECML, the project members Caterina Sugranyes, Latisha Mary, Gerit Jaritz and Karen Aarøe have been contacting education professionals from around Europe and recruiting participants from a range of different countries and linguistic contexts. The response from teachers and others around the continent has been overwhelmingly positive, as evidenced by the involvement of people from nine different countries. Specifically, attendees of the network meeting will hail from as far afield as Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Hungary, Norway and the Netherlands. “PLURIWELL is largely about how we recognize and then respond to the plurilingual conditions that surround us”, according to the project coordinator, Caterina Sugranyes, “That is why it is essential to have people from so many different places with differing circumstances and realities.”

The invitees to the network meeting were carefully selected with the overall goals of the project in mind. Most of the participants are primary school teachers but they will be joined by several university-based teacher trainers, along with the project’s associate partners, Camilla F. Hansen, Kaitlin Balthasar, Elisabeth I. Kaalund, Josep Ballarin Garoña and Will Bromberg. Their varying perspectives on plurilingualism and language education will undoubtedly be of value as PLURIWELL seeks a better understanding of how teachers can become more aware of their own plurilingual wellbeing and how, in turn, they can help foster this wellbeing in others.

The network meeting, though, is only a starting point for the coming year of activity for PLURIWELL. The participants will have the chance to remain actively involved throughout the year, following the pathway for designing plurilingual-wellbeing-oriented tools that will emerge from the meeting. Thanks to the knowledge and experience they will have gained, they will be able to return to their home countries and schools to create tools that will allow them to continue to develop their own plurilingual wellbeing and that of their colleagues. Throughout the year, they will also be able to attend online meetings where they will share what they have done and give and receive feedback from the PLURIWELL partners and their other colleagues. The project partners will then compile these tools into a handbook targeting teachers all over Europe as they deal with the issues that emerge in the context of plurilingual education.

This builds on the work already conducted by the PLURIWELL team on plurilingual wellbeing, including the creation of glossary of definitions of some of the key concepts that the project addresses, as well as the drafting of a series of guiding principles for plurilingual wellbeing.

Caterina Sugranyes, Latisha Mary, Gerit Jaritz, Karen Aarøe

• ECML project website "Pluriwell – Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers" (available in English and French) : www.ecml.at/pluriwell