The participants in the ECML’s “Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers” project (Pluriwell) are continuing to do inspiring work in their respective schools and countries.  In the current phase of the project, teachers are collaborating with their colleagues locally to create tools to foster plurilingual wellbeing. Some are already piloting the tools in their schools. A selection of their output will be included in a forthcoming toolkit for teachers.

Participants in the countries and schools in the Pluriwell network have been applying the conceptual framework of plurilingual wellbeing and the project’s guidelines as they work to create tools for teachers. Some of the resulting tools are already being incorporated into teacher training activities at the schools in the network and beyond. The upcoming online Pluriwell meeting in March will be an opportunity for these local teams to share their progress, get feedback and submit tools for the final toolkit.

Teachers are creating tools both in their local languages and in the main languages of the project, English and French. The tools in other languages will be translated by the team members. While some tools may address issues that are specific to certain linguistic contexts, most will have a broader appeal and will be applicable around Europe. “This project is about helping teachers become more aware of their own relationships to the languages around them”, said the project’s second language correspondent Gerit Jaritz. “Of course, the linguistic situations of the schools involved can vary greatly, but we all have reflections that can be helpful elsewhere.”

Escola Lurdes in Barcelona is a leading example of a Pluriwell school. The four participating teachers there have already designed and shared six tools, addressing various aspects of plurilingual wellbeing. Thank you Marta Bayà, Maria Guerra, Estel Torruella and Mar Fernández! “The project website is an important place for us to share our work in progress,” according to Pluriwell’s website correspondent, Latisha Mary. For more information on these tools, please see the upcoming updates in our section on Recent Developments.

The Pluriwell expert team has developed an instrument to assess the effectiveness of the contributions. This will allow them to determine which tools to include in the ECML toolkit. The online meeting in March and the assessment tool will be featured in the next news item here. Our communications officer Karen Aarøe will also be sharing the ways in which we are disseminating our project.

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

As the first full year of the ECML project Pluriwell came to a close, the participants held an online meeting to continue their collaboration, share their ideas and celebrate their progress. Over 30 participants from all over Europe joined the event via video chat on 16 December 2024. The meeting was an opportunity for Pluriwell teachers to reconnect, look back at what the network has accomplished in 2024 and look ahead to the coming year.

Pluriwell teachers around Europe have been collaborating with a view to creating tools designed to increase teachers’ plurilingual wellbeing. The meeting offered a space for participants to compare notes about this work in progress. Teachers were able to exchange impressions about how their colleagues and schools have responded to Pluriwell’s ideas about plurilingual wellbeing and to compare the issues that have emerged as they have explored their colleagues’ experiences and attitudes in different contexts.

The fact that the meeting attracted such a large number of attendees from the participating schools reflects the continued strength of the project network as Pluriwell enters its second year and a new phase of work on the plurilingual wellbeing of teachers. Many of the attendees had already attended the initial network meeting in Graz in October, and were joined by colleagues who have been taking part in Pluriwell remotely. Attendees connected from several countries including Spain, France, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, Montenegro and Czechia.

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

• ECML project website “Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers” (2024-26) (available in English and French) : www.ecml.at/pluriwell
• See also “Recent developments”

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