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