European Commission - Lifelong Learning Programme
|
“Languages & Integration through
Singing” |
Grundtvig
2 Action - Agreement n° 2008-1-IT2-GRU06-00532-1
|
“French and Spanish language
competence through songs” |
Grundtvig Learning partnership Action - Agreement n° 2010-1-IT2-GRU06-14018-1
|
Find A Delightful Opportunity to learn Portuguese through Internet and songs” |
Grundtvig
Learning partnership Action - Agreement n° 2011-1-IT2-GRU06-24012-1
The idea of this project
comes from the awareness that it is more and more important to promote plurilinguism in
intercultural communication and the integration of all European citizens both
in schools and in lifelong learning
courses.
In order to encourage
innovation in education, to give suitable methodological and technological
answers right for the target groups ( teachers of IT, FR, ES, PT, RO, RU as L2
and their students – no matter the age- and people from various age groups
learning one of the aforesaid languages as L2, but also people wishing to learn
one of the languages for work, tourism or immigration, the project wants to
disseminate new ways to teach a foreign language, linking the use of songs
(particularly useful to build up communicative skills in a foreign language and
intercultural learning) to the use of karaoke and audio visual materials put in
the web. This approach overcomes the problems caused by age and different types
of learners and allows the use of new technologies based on Internet, YouTube
and interactive multimedia whiteboards.
The teaching materials, at
CEFR A2 and B1 levels, require learners to have A1 linguistic competence and is
based on the guidelines, inserted in the website www.languagesbysongs.eu, which
explain the methodological frame, the introduction to the method and give
suggestions both on how to introduce the music approach when teaching a
language and on how to write suitable exercises.
This project, part of a wider framework of
activities by FENICE targeted on making foreign language learning easier, is
actually the sum of three projects: “Languages
and Integration through Singing” carried out in the period 2008-2010 and
aimed to languages Italian, Romanian and Russian, “French and Spanish language competence through songs” carried out
in the period 2010-2012 and aimed to French and Spanish languages and "Find A Delightful Opportunity to learn
Portuguese through Internet and songs” aimed to Portuguese language and its
Brazilian variant carried out in the period 2011-2013.
The teaching materials have
been inserted in the website www.languagesbysongs.eu, after being experimented
to ensure suitability, relevance and effectiveness. They can be used
everywhere, also for autonomous learning and the project can be considered a
model to apply to other languages as well.
Some teachers have already
accepted our invitation and sent us their teaching materials based on this
methodology, which after being checked were added to the worksheets created by
the project partners. Their names were added to the list of authors.
In order to disseminate this
method throughout Europe, the partners will write the program of a five-day
course to put in the Comenius Grundtvig Catalogue. Thus it will be possible to
create a network among teachers, both
trainers and trainees, who, in their turn, will spread the method, developing
it and changing it according to their needs and teaching practices.
Other objectives:
Ø
To improve cooperation among institutions involved in adult education;
Ø To support teachers’ training;
Ø
To spread the results by means of websites, conferences, national and
transnational meetings also outside the partner countries;
Ø
To acquaint institutions, organizations and authorities working in the
field of teaching foreign languages with the validity of this approach
and the usefulness of including it in curricula;
Ø
To encourage on-line exchanges among teachers and experts from various
countries.
The main activities of these projects were:
- Meetings
of local working teams in each partner country and transnational meetings of partners to organize work, exchange experiences, analyse
and evaluate the work done;
- Writing
of guidelines and advice on the introduction of the music approach in the
learning of a foreign language, their translation in the target languages and
implementation in the website;
- Elaboration
of sample materials – music themes, vocabulary lists, grammar contents,
exercises aiming at self-assessment of learning, oral drills connected to
karaoke – and their implementation in the website;
- Creation,
layout & editing, programming the web portal www.languagesbysongs.eu
in seven languages EN, IT, FR, ES, PT, RO, RU containing the
didactic materials described herein;
- Experimentation
of teaching materials in schools, universities and centres for adult
education in several countries in collaboration with the associated
partners, analysis and evaluation of results and final revision of materials;
- Filling
the website with the modified materials;
- Development
and implementation of a dissemination strategy of the project and of the
results achieved by means of newsletters, conferences and training courses
so that a great number of training institutions and schools may adopt the
music approach combined with the use of the Internet in teaching
languages.
Creation
of the web portal www.languagesbysongs.eu
in seven languages (IT, FR, ES, PT, RO, RU) plus EN. For each
target language the portal, which uses interactive techniques and technologies
for the management of video and audio products, contains five sections:
a.
Information – general info
about the project, objectives, activities, partners and results of the project;
b. Teachers’ area containing: 1) methodological
procedures on how to use the song in the classroom to learn a language and
guidelines on how to use the didactic material and produce their own; 2) a
report on the results of the testing;
c. Working area usable by teachers and students,
including: examples of songs with lyrics, video, karaoke and worksheets with
exercises, activities and practical suggestions for language teachers. In this
section, exercises created and sent by teachers outside the
partnership but interested in collaborating in the development of this
methodology are added;
d. a
section called "About Us" containing information on the partners, the
authors of teaching materials and teachers who have tested them;
e. Links area containing links to relevant
websites (language learning resources, language teaching with music support,
radio and TV channels).
Development
of the teaching/learning contents:
a.
methodological frame, the
introduction to the method, the formative and cognitive objectives;
b.
elaboration of sample
learning materials – themes, vocabulary, grammar content, tests on the language
learning aimed at self-assessment of the results by the students, drills taking
into consideration the use of karaoke;
d.
technical analysis of the
linguistic input and defining technical specifications and requirements;
development of software and graphic design; development of beta version of the
learning units.
Piloting
the didactic materials:
§ Choosing a suitable audience for piloting
(schools and adult training centres etc.);
§ Development of piloting schedule;
§ Piloting feedback and evaluation;
§ Improvement and finalizing of the product with
the results of the experimentation.
A plan
for the dissemination of the results in order to make this approach adopted by a
large number of teacher training institutions and schools and a strategy for
sustainability and follow-up activities
All three projects have been written and coordinated by Federazione
Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l’Europa – FENICE – Naples, Italy
–a non-profit teacher association which supports any initiative favouring the
integration of the intellectual resources of schools in the cultural growth of
society, promotes and plans initiatives, training projects, refresher courses,
the cultural improvement of teachers as well as research and experimentation in
the teaching field, and takes part in the research and development of
technologies in order to make learning easier. Furthermore it publishes a magazine
called «Scuol@Europa» sent to all secondary schools in Italy and a newsletter
sent out in three languages (IT, EN, FR) all over Europe to institutions and
policy makers. The newsletter contains information on its activities in
transnational partnerships in European Projects. The aim is to let a wider
audience know the products and the methods developed by transnational
partnerships, and to encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences.
In the achievement of the three projects FENICE has been supported by
"ITIS Galileo Ferraris" (Napoli - Italy) as ASSOCIATED PARTNER.
"ITIS Galileo Ferraris" is a State secondary technical school dealing
with Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, provided with
multimedia experts of ICT and technologies of management of sound and video
(technical sound, video technician, web designer, web master, …) as well as of
a laboratory equipped with necessary instrumentation for the accomplishment of
the material sound and video.
The
FENICE's partners in the first project “Languages and Integration through
Singing”, were institutions from Bulgaria, Romania and Slovak:
·
Euroinform Ltd - Sofia, Bulgaria
- is a company concerned with designing and introducing modern teaching methods
in adult training and language teaching. Among the main goals of the
organisation there are development of motivation for language learning among
adults, including learners with special education needs, with the view to
improving their employability, soft skills training, development and delivery
of methodology and training of trainers in language learning and introduction
of innovative methodologies in formal and non-formal education. The company
cooperates with a number of educational establishments, adult training centres,
language schools, etc. The organisation pays particular attention to the needs
of adult language learners with visual impairments and explores and develops
teaching methods to encourage their creativity and motivation.
·
EuroEd Foundation - Iasi, Romania
- is accredited by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research and is part
of the national education system, the Life Long Learning section. The Foundation is a founder member of QUEST
(The Romanian Association for Quality Language Services) and QUEST is an
associate member of EAQUALS (The European Association for Quality Language
Services). EuroEd Foundation includes now the Regional Centre for Education and
Communication (life long learning - adult education: local, regional, national
and international professional training) and houses, the International Language
Centre (foreign language courses and Romanian as a foreign language), the
Regional Centre for European Integration (the implementation of local, regional,
national and international projects) and the EuroEd Kindergarten and Primary
School. Furthermore EuroEd Foundation has its base in Iasi, a city near the
border with Moldova and with close relations with institutions there.
·
The E-KU Institute of Language
and Intercultural Communication in Nitra, Slovakia is a language education
provider, operating with all age groups interested in learning any of these
languages: English, German, Italian, Russian, French, Spanish and Slovak for
Foreigners. Therefore it is highly interested in employing new, modern and
innovative teaching methods in its language programmes.
In addition to the above the following institutions played an active role
in the Partnership as ASSOCIATED PARTNERS
·
"Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale"
(Napoli - Italy) This institution is the branch of Ministry of education at
provincial level. It coordinates the schools of each level in the province of
Napoli (2310 schools) in Campania Region. It will be involved in piloting of
the developed materials and disseminating the project results within its Adult
education Centres called CPT together with the other two branches of Ministry
of education of Caserta and Frosinone.
·
"Ufficio Scolastico
Provinciale" (Caserta - Italy) the branch of Ministry of education at
provincial level. It coordinates the schools of all levels in the province of
Caserta (911 schools) in Campania Region.
·
"Ufficio Scolastico
Provinciale" (Frosinone - Italy) the branch of Ministry of education at
provincial level. It coordinates the schools of all levels in the province of
Frosinone (640 schools) in Lazio Region and a network of institutions for a
local project aimed at the integration of foreigners.
The
FENICE's partners in the second project, "French and Spanish language competence
through songs” (FRESCO) were institutions from Romania and Spain:
·
The
University of Bucharest is one of the most important institutions for higher
education in Romania and every year it involves in its activity more than
30,000 students specializing in various fields of learning. As it has been
directly involved in the reorganization
of the Romanian teaching system,
the University has taken measures and
conceived several projects leading to the elaboration of new curricula, national laws and regulations.
In 2000 the University received a special award from the Ministry of Education,
Research, Youth and Sports because of its great merits which make this
institution one of the first 500 universities in the world. Being interested in
national and international collaborations, considered a priority, the
University has concluded many professional agreements (international masters
and courses, doctorates) and has taken part in various European programmes,
such as Erasmus, Lingua, Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci, Unica, Amos, Tempus,
Tempra, etc).The Department of French in the Faculty of foreign Languages and
Literatures, with its 50 members, offers great opportunities of training in
linguistics, literary studies, translation and translation studies, applied
modern languages, teaching methodology and anthropology. The students
specialising in French must attend a course of methodology and a six-month
teaching stage and during them they have to hand out teaching projects. The
University is also in charge of the teachers’ in-service training. A hundred a
year follow the courses planned for them.
·
IES
"Ribeiro do Louro" is a secondary high school giving general education, vocational training and courses
for lifelong learning. It is situated in Porrino (Pontevedra), Spain and has 68
teachers and about 600 hundred students. Among its specialised courses it has
advanced training courses in International Trade, Management, Telecommunication
Systems and Computer Science. It has a great experience in planning and teaching
European courses and has been both a partner and a promoter in projects within
the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth programme and Sudoeste Interreg. Many of these
projects are focused to language learning and contribute to the social and
economic integration of minorities.
In addition to the above mentioned, the following institutions acted as
ASSOCIATED PARTNERS having an active role in the project:
·
The "Anastasia Popescu" School (Bucharest
- Romania) is a private institution certified by the Romanian Ministry of
Education, Research and Sports. Besides the usual teaching work, the curriculum
includes several activities to train and
develop the learners’ artistic skills. According to their inclinations, the
students attend drama classes, instrumental or vocal music classes, visual arts
classes, sports, dance sessions. Foreign languages (French, German and English)
are one of the main focuses in this school. Their intense teaching/learning
activity leads to the organization of performances, arts exhibitions and to
participation in many competitions, both inside and outside the school.
·
The "Stefan Luchian" School of Arts
(Botosani - Romania) is an institution specializing in arts and music. It is a
kind of comprehensive school going from primary to high school. The school
organizes several artistic activities such as recitals, concerts, individual or
group exhibitions, school competitions for all the school subjects and contests
to assess the learners’ interpretative and creative skills. The students are
also trained in voluntary activities organized by the local community.
·
The National College "Ion Neculce"
(Bucharest - Romania) is a leading institution for the high level of education
given to its students. The senior high school offers a variety of possibilities to carry out very diversified
classes. This institution is Point of European documentation, Training Centre
of the teachers, Centre of Documentation and Information, of the National
Program carried out in partnership with the France embassy, authorized centre
of evaluation ECDL, CISCO, ECL. The presence of a
very competent and demanding teaching staff has meant excellent results of the
students in the national and international school contests and a gold medal for
the international contest of projects "Informatix."
·
The IES Pedra da Auga (Ponteareas - Spain) is a
state school extremely active in developing projects to improve the language
skills of their students. Currently they are performing three different
projects: PROA Project, sponsored by the Spanish government, whose aim is to
improve the educational results of students with learning difficulties; a
workshop for improving the motivation to learn languages and the creativity of
the students by using songs, and, the third one, which consists in improving
multilinguistic skills by the use of songs. The last one, called, YOGOTE, is a
long term programme involving a number of students who are learning several
different languages. Its website is www.es.yogote.net and is becoming very
popular as a new approach for teaching languages. They are members of UNESCO
Associated Schools (ASPnet) networking, whose
aim is to reinforce the humanistic, ethical, cultural and international
dimensions of education.
The
FENICE’s partners in the third project, "Find A Delightful Opportunity to
learn Portuguese through Internet and songs” (FADO), are institutions from
Portugal, Romania and Spain:
·
Every year, the University of Porto (UP) welcomes
around 3000 international students, and it has over 20 years experience in
international mobility programmes, having participated in Erasmus and ECTS
pilot projects. Since then, UP has strengthened its international activities.
In 2009, UP participated in 8 new EU projects. UP also coordinated the Alßan
Programme for 8 years. It also participated in 46 European Projects (Framework
Programmes, COST, Intelligent Energy-Europe Programmes, EUROCORES, EEA Grant,
Comenius,Erasmus Thematic Network, Tempus IV, ALFA III, Edulink, EMECW, EQUAL,
Leonardo da Vinci & IPs), coordinating 11 of these. The UP’s Faculty of
Arts (FLUP) has long-standing experience in the teaching of Portuguese as a
foreign language or second language (PFL/SL), as well as in the training of
teachers of PFL/SL. FLUP’s students of PFL/SL are generally short-term
university students of other nationalities, but there are also regular
students, particularly immigrants. Although not really among its target public,
but rather among the students that may come to be taught by future teachers of
PFL/SL, currently attending the Masters degree in Teaching Portuguese as a Flat
FLUP, there will be many students whose mother tongue is not Portuguese and who
will thus benefit from this project. Some Masters students, both during their
teaching internships and in their MA theses/reports, may take songs as the
basis for their work, in their teaching approaches, materials prepared,
assignment records and games. The project can include music from other
Lusophone countries, such as Cape Verde, not only because there are many
immigrants, but also because they have a very rich musical tradition. The
project includes a component to compare European and Brazilian Portuguese, an
activity towards which FLUP can contribute greatly given its privileged ties
with these countries.
·
The University of Bucharest is one of the most
important institutions for higher education in Romania and every year it
involves in its activity more than 30,000 thousand students specializing in
various fields of learning. As it has been directly involved in the
reorganization of the Romanian teaching system, the University has taken
measures and conceived several projects leading to the elaboration of new
curricula, national laws and regulations. In 2000 the University has received a
special award from the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports
because of its great merits which make this institution one of the first 500
universities in the world. Being interested in national and international
collaborations, considered a priority, the University has concluded many
professional agreements (international masters and courses, doctorates) and has
taken part in various European programmes, such as Erasmus, Lingua, Comenius,
Leonardo da Vinci, Unica, Amos, Tempus, Tempra, etc). The Portuguese Section
belongs to the Department of Romance Linguistics, Ibero-Romance Languages and
Literatures, which in effect comprises four Sections (Romance Linguistics,
Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan). The Portuguese Section has three members and
one Portuguese lecturer and faces nowadays an increasing number of students
interested in studying the language and in obtaining a licence and master
degree in Portuguese studies. Indeed it offers the students the opportunity of
specializing in Portuguese literature and linguistics, as well as in Portuguese
literary translation.
·
The Official Language School (EOI) of Malaga
(Andalusia) is one of the Official Language Schools who form a wide network of
non-university level schools dedicated to specialized teaching of modern
languages. The EEOOII are centres managed by the Ministries of Education of the
Autonomous Communities and are framed within the special regime centres. The
certificates granted by the EEOOII are the only valid non-university official
ones in relation to modern languages in Spain. Students have a total of four
courses to achieve the basic level (classes A1 and A2) and six courses to
overcome the Intermediate level (B1) and Advanced (B2.1 and B2.2). The EOI of
Málaga offers the study of eleven languages with two kinds of education:
presential classes and non-presential classes and welcomes every year more than
6000 students, being one of the biggest in the region of Andalusia. The
Portuguese Department has actually three members: two teachers and one teaching
assistant, they teach the five existing classes, corresponding to the three
levels mentioned above.