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