On 4 April, the Expert Team of the ECML project ‘Pro-Sign II - Promoting excellence in sign language instruction’ met to discuss the further development of the products of our project, and prepare for the Network Meeting. 

The Network meeting took place on 5-6 April, and was attended in total by 23 people from 17 countries. Main topics were working towards a profile for sign language teachers’ competencies, towards a European Language Portfolio (ELP) fit for sign language learners, and assessment literacy and training. After very useful presentations by Lukas Bleichenbacher (ECML project: ‘Towards a common European framework of reference for language teachers’) and Ulrike Szigeti from ECML project ‘Digital literacy for the teaching and learning of languages­­­’ (E-LANG), and other innovative contributions from many, we worked in small groups discussing possibilities and restrictions. ­­­

The workshop was very useful and constructive, and the Expert Team members are very grateful to all participants  for their enthusiasm and their input. Please have a look at some video reports that are on the Pro-Sign II website. A special thank you to the ECML team who once again made us very welcome and supported us in every possible way, to the representatives of ENSLT and EFSLI, and Moscow State University. The interpreters too contributed hugely to a successful meeting.

In the coming months we will work out all the contributions and prepare for the ProSign2 / EFSLI conference in Belgrade in October 2018 (see elsewhere on our website). The Call for papers has been released and we very much welcome any paper and poster presentations.

The Pro-Sign II project team:
Christian Rathmann (coordinator), Tobias Haug, Lorraine Leeson, Beppie van den Bogaerde