After the workshop on 28 and 29 September 2021, a network of experts started to develop and now counts about 40 members, coming from more than 25 European countries, as well as from Canada and Brazil. Some of them took part in the first day of the network meeting on 3 February 2022 – online – to exchange around two lines:
- Information and exchanges on the work of the team:
- Continuation of the identification of teacher competences for pluralistic approaches: in addition to the descriptors already developed for values and principles and for the didactic and pedagogical dimension, new descriptors have been added for communication competences, meta (-linguistic, -communicative, -cultural) competences and competences for professional learning and development. Note that these are all specific teacher competences for pluralistic approaches.
- Materials for teacher education: the team presented new task units, shorter than the first ones (to take into account the feedback received in September) and focusing on the development of attitudes and competences in the dimensions of values and principles, metalinguistic competences and professional learning and development.
Presentations with examples of the team's productions are already available on the project webpage. This page will constantly be up-dated with further project results.
- Organisation of the work of the network: this work aims at creating new teacher education materials for the development of specific teaching competences for pluralistic approaches as well as piloting them. Working groups have formed to collaborate on the development of materials. This collaborative work focuses on, for example, reflection on one's representations of diversity, the development of didactic and pedagogical competences for the design and management of teaching processes using pluralistic approaches, the development of competences in selecting and/or producing materials for integrated didactics, raising awareness of the link between language and culture, guiding reflection in and on action, etc. Other collaborative projects are still in preparation and some members of the network are in the process of organising the experimentation of materials in their working context.
A second part of the network meeting, scheduled for 5 April 2022, will provide an opportunity to share all that will have been carried out by then and to organise further work.
Brigitte Gerber, coordinator, with the project team