Latest articles
21.06.2024
France: uniting the educational community by legitimising all the languages present
Date: 16 and 17 November 2023
Venue: Lycée Hôtelier International de Lille
Local organiser: Emmanuel HAUCHARD, CASNAV coordinator, Académie de Lille
ECML moderators: Nermina Wikström (Sweden) and Sophie Babault (France)
Participants: 23 teachers of various subjects (literature, English, physical and sports education, German, earth and life sciences), senior education advisers, teachers of French as a language of schooling, CASNAV academic advisers (trainers)
The inclusion of newly arrived allophone pupils in school is now a principle affirmed by academic directives and accepted by all members of the educational community. However, the objective of acquiring the French language – the language of schooling – sometimes means that other languages present in schools are overlooked. Yet knowledge and use of many languages designated as 'foreign' are not restricted to the minority of children from families that have recently arrived in France.
Thanks to ROADMAP/FEUILLE DE ROUTE, we can initiate a collective process of reflection involving all staff, as well as parents and pupils themselves. The self-assessment tool is easy to use, and invites the various players to consider all the languages involved as potential levers for learning, while strengthening the cohesion of the educational community. The practices proposed at the end of the diagnosis are inspiring and adaptable to different local contexts. With the support of ECML experts, the approach is easy to adopt and is showing promising results.
Emmanuel Hauchard, coordinator of the CASNAV of the Académie de Lille
20.06.2024
The role of ECML projects for language educators
ECML training and consultancy: Action Research Communities online workshop
Date: pre-workshop on 23 May 2024; workshop: 31 May – 1st June 2024
Venue: Brusov State University, Yerevan
Local organiser: Arpine Hovhannisyan, Brusov State University
ECML moderators: Christine Lechner, Austria, and Renata Zanin, Italy
Participants: 22 language teachers working at the university, schools, language centres
As a local organiser and recent participant in the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) online Workshop on Action Research Communities (ARC), I am excited to share the incredible training and consultancy opportunities offered by ECML! These events are designed to empower language educators with cutting-edge methodologies and innovative practices, ensuring that we – Armenian language teachers – stay at the forefront of language teaching.
The ARC workshop was a transformative experience. You engage with educators from different Institutions, exploring innovative research methods, collaborative strategies, and effective practices in language education. The insights and practical tools develop the participants’ knowledge and creative impulses to enhance the effectiveness of their teaching.
ECML’s training and consultancy events cover a wide range of language education themes, including digital literacy, plurilingual education, and inclusive teaching strategies. These events are tailored to meet our diverse needs, offering engaging workshops and collaborative learning experiences.
By participating in ECML events, we benefit from the expertise of leading professionals in the field and join a supportive community of educators committed to excellence in language education. These programmes provide unparalleled opportunities to advance our skills, network with peers, and contribute to the evolution of language teaching.
I encourage all language educators to take advantage of these exceptional opportunities. Elevate your teaching and make a meaningful impact on your students’ language learning journeys.
Visit the ECML website to learn more and register for upcoming events. Together, we can transform language education and evolve further!
Arpine Hovhannisyan
19.06.2024
Supporting Multilingual Classrooms: ECML national training workshop (6 – 7 June 2024, Belgrade, Serbia)
Supporting Multilingual Classrooms: ECML national training workshop (6 – 7 June 2024, Belgrade, Serbia)
Local organiser: Milena Kostić & Tamara Đorđević, Foundation Tempus
ECML experts: Terry Lamb, Brigitte Gerber
Participants: 17 (teacher educators, mentors, teachers organising professional development activities, school leaders)
The workshop organised on 6 and 7 June 2024 in Belgrade brought together teacher educators, mentors, teachers organising professional development activities and school leaders from primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions across Serbia.
The workshop offered sessions involving individual and group work. The participants learnt about valuing plurilingual identities and attitudes towards diversity in the classroom, developing competences to support the learning of other languages in the classroom, how to support multilingualism across the curriculum and in the whole school. The importance of cooperation at the school level was emphasised with the aim of raising awareness of multilingualism and interculturality. The participants could apply the insights and knowledge they gained while creating joint projects.
The participants found it particularly useful that they could observe how students feel in the classrooms where they neither speak nor understand (well) the language of schooling and to reflect on and discuss the ways of integrating them. During the workshop, the moderators presented the activities in which – in addition to teachers – peers, parents and the wider community could also participate, as they are important in the process of welcoming foreign students and introducing them to the new language and culture.
Milena Kostić and Tamara Đorđević, local organisers, 18 June 2024
11.12.2023
Call for the ECML-EU joint action "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning" 2024 – open until 10 January 2024
11.12.2023
Final conference of the 6th medium-term programme 2020-2023 (13-14 December 2023, Graz, Austria & online)
“Inspiring innovation in language education: changing contexts, evolving competences” – Join the livestream!
The conference represents the culmination of the four years of work of the ECML’s “Inspiring innovation in language education: changing contexts, evolving competences” programme, involving, among others, 9projects, 1think tank, 12offers of training and consultancy (TaC) and a series of initiatives developed with the support of the European Commission.
The conference is aimed at all language education professionals and in particular at ECML stakeholders, policy makers and persons with a professional focus on the practice of language education (curriculum development, teacher education, material design…).
The programme involves plenary presentations, speeches, a round table, a series of smaller workshops for the presentation and discussion of programme outputs and outcomes as well as envisaged links to activities in the 2024-2027 programme.
The workshops on the second day of the conference will be organised thematically:
- Language teacher and learner competences,
- Transversal dimension of language education / Competences for life and work,
- Plurilingual and intercultural education,
- Languages of schooling; language in subjects.
Within each given theme there will be a focus on the completed project resources and related TaC activities from the current programme. Presenters will focus on the inspiring and innovative aspects of their TaC activity/new resources and will consider how the different approaches and materials presented in their thematic session complement one other.
This will also be an excellent opportunity to get a preview of the new ECML programme “Language education at the heart of democracy” (2024-2027).
In order to ensure access to a wider audience, the event will be streamed in both working languages (English and French) and the recordings made available on the ECML website.
Conference web page: English – French
Conference programme: English – French
Join the live streaming here – no registration required: English – French
#ECMLCELVconf2023
17.10.2023
Work-related language development for fair migration and sustainable integration and participation — „Deutschkenntnisse dort fördern, wo sie dringend gebraucht werden: am Arbeitsplatz!“
Date: 8 September 2022 and 9 May 2023, Germany
ECML experts: Matilde Grünhage-Monetti, Alexander Braddell and Christophe Portefin, Language for Work website, network and insights
Local organiser: Matthias von Gehlen, Goethe-Institut
Participants: 24 (8 September 2022) and 49 (9 May 2023)
“Developing the language of the immigration country (L2) for adult migrants for and at work is teamwork.” This could be the motto of the Language for Work (LfW) National Support for Germany 2022/23. This was split into two events: a face-to-face round table, during the 25th Metropolis Conference, Berlin on 8 September 2022 and an online Workshop on 9 May 2023.
The round table (Fair Migration section) presented the point of view of L2 practitioners, researchers and providers, as well of employers and trade unions, stressing the need for partnership and joint action. The audience welcomed this systemic approach. The Clavis magazine for Labour Market and Integration reported on it along with other nine workshops in a special edition dedicated to the conference (www.bmas.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/Topics/Labour-Market/imcb-2022-voices-and-insights.pdf? __blob=publicationFile&v=2).
The second event brought together L2 research and practice, business, trade unions, workers’ councils, labour administration and BAMF (Federal Office for Migration and Refugees). They discussed structures and conditions for fair, effective and sustainable ways to support migrant workers learning German for and at work.
In both events language was discussed as instrument for action in the context of work, constructing and giving meaning to ones’ own activities and enabling the speakers to act upon their world. Such an understanding requires approaches embedding language learning in the context in which it is used and gets its meaning: the workplace.
Matilde Grünhage-Monetti