The project “PARENTable – communicating with parents of newly migrated children” is a transnational project together with (mediating) educators and parents in order to implement new communication formats and trainings that increase mutual understanding and build communication bridges between school facilities and families. The aim of the project is (1) to gain and share knowledge about best-practice communication in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey where educators and parents can exchange their views and (2) to develop an inclusive training concept for both educators and parents in order to better support newly migrated children between new school contexts and families. Parents can thus gain a deeper understanding of the challenges their children face and at the same time, they can also make their perspectives and needs heard at school. The concept of PARENTable is to support newly migrated children in a holistic approach considering their parents as one of the most important pillars for their successful course of education. The results of the Europe wide conducted interviews will be edited and published as handbook. The training concept will be distributed as a manual as well as further developed into an e-learning course. The target groups of this project are educators and parents of newly migrated children aged 9-15 in Europe which will be gathered in this project.PARENTable will provide concrete guidance material (handbook) based on interviews and hold transnational trainings in five different settings in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey. The handbook will contain in-depth perspectives of parents and educators before, during and after trainings by conducting focus groups interviews. The transnational training activities will be composed equally with 7 parents and 7 educators and will consist of modules such as identities/self-esteem, supportive parenting, multilingualism, communication methods between school/parents and transnational families. These modules will be developed, re-evaluated and optimized by the transnational partner consortium in close accordance to this target groups during the project duration. In order to have a wide impact, we attempt to work with educators that play a mediating role between newly migrated parents and schools and are critical for building communication bridges. Educators targeted during PARENTable will be mother-tongue tutors, mother-tongue cultural mediators that accompany newly arrived minor pupils, school counselors as well as teacher students that assist in intercultural school settings. Our developed training and guidance material later will be promoted for teachers’ education all over Europe.Regarding parents of newly migrated children, we will gather parents who have an impact in their communities, but also who feel insecure and in need of assistance when it comes to supporting their children in new school contexts. National and local integration politics are often focused on the immediate incorporation of newly arrived children into national schooling systems. However, educators and other actors within the school system mostly lack information about children’s family situation and their personal and educational histories. Besides, it is difficult to reach out to parents who don’t speak the local language and lack trust in school authorities. Parents on the other hand don’t have access to knowledge about e.g. multilingualism and children’s identity formations in new settings. They might also be under immense psychological stress which prevents them from playing a positive role in supporting their children. Being themselves in unstable positions, they often put too much pressure on their children when it comes to school results. And finally, parents might feel discrimination and stereotypes from wider school contexts that prevents them from making their positions heard.PARENTable wants to tackle these issues by offering a platform of communicating and educating both educators and parents with a transnationally developed training that is closely adopted to the needs and experiences of families and educators all over Europe alike.

"In the focus of the project ""BOQua"", which was implemented by 5 partners from 5 EU countries (DE, AT, UK, ES, SI) - which implement and create vocational orientation - stand the development of a new EU qualification concept ""specialist for vocational orientation"" and the sustainable implementation in Europe. The lack of competence of the actors of vocational orientation (VO) because of the fast changes in the working world can be i.a. a reason for an increased number of training abortions. Because of that the risk of future youth unemployment and social exclusion for young people in Europe will grow. The basis for a high-quality VO, that gains in importance because of the increasing cross-border education and training market mobility for both potential trainees, as well as the companies, is an EU-wide, on quality standards basing qualification of the VO measures implementing staff (e.g. teachers, professionals of youth work , trainers, career counselors). The need to develop a specific EU qualification for VO results from the following reasons: 1. Beside to numerous different measures with cooperating companies, an inadequate integration of vocational orientation e.g. in the school education and various consulting offers of different institutions, the implementation methods and priorities of vocational orientation in the EU are very versatile, non-transparent and non-uniform. That is attributable to a different degree of implementation of the VO in Europe as well as different qualifications of the specialist staff. 2. Especially the service, industrial-technical and handicrafts fields with its diverse training opportunities offers young people with a low/middle school leaving certificate and disadvantaged young people numerous job opportunities. 3. The specialised staff (i.a. in schools, institutions of independent youth work, education providers, chambers, consulting intuitions, job agencies) has often only informally acquired professional / methodological knowledge and there is also often a lack regarding to the knowledge and their trainings are also not transparent. 4. Because the requirements of the working world are often not known, companies complain an inadequate professional supporting and counseling for young people in the process of career choice. The aim of the project on one hand is to promote the professionalization of the specialists / actors of VO by the above-mentioned EU qualification concept and the supplementary VET products contributes. On the other hand young people should be supported and advised in a better quality in their process of career choice, with the result that the next generation of skilled worker is sustainable ensured for companies. To make the EU-concept transferable in all countries and regions and cross-border comparable, also quality standards for the EU concept to ensure the quality were developed. Furthermore, a good practice guideline for the implementation of VO measures/activities that supports the practical implementation were developed as well as 5 qualification modules to promote the implementation of VO and unknown measures/ activities/models/teaching materials for the actors have been prepared and made accessible. Furthermore an assessment instrument was developed that allows training institutions / companies to identify whether potential trainees have run through a suitable, aim-oriented vocational training and whether they have made the right career choice. So for them should be ensured that the trainees don’t cancel the training due to lack of professional ideas and aptitute. With the aim of a sustainable implementation of the EU concept in the EU a guideline for implementing the EU concept for implementation on the national and EU level was developed as well as a webplattform to download all the products and further instruments / tools for the work in the field of VO. The development of the different products bases on a VET scientific analysis (actual/ target analysis, case studies, expert interviews) in all participating countries on the current status of VO and the level of implementation of VO and the requirements of all stakeholders to a VO. The developed products should be sustainable contribute to initiated a professional future orientation support process, which enables young people to establish their own career choice competence. Young people should be able on the basis of an acquired overview knowledge and specific knowledge that they get from the specialists of VO to make the right career choice and to reflect their choice according to their interests, abilities and skills."

“ENABLE: Self-learning for Arab refugee children” was a European project of the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd (Germany), the NGO Back on Track Syria e.V. in Berlin, University of Calabria (Italy), University in Gävle (Sweden) and the Muğla Sitki Kocman University (Turkey). The project aimed at the better integration of refugee children in local school contexts by directly working with Arab mother-tongue educators. The objective was to offer those educators a training so they can support children in developing a positive self-concept, a positive and self-organized learning attitude and tackle subjects such as exclusion, stereotypization and the effect of trauma. Another objective was to further educate and professionalize mother-tongue trainers and teachers but also learn from their experiences on the ground. Since the situation in different countries in Europe is very diverse, the partner consortium gathered and exchanged experience in diverse formalized and non-formalized school and integration contexts, thereby targeting a variety of different educators and practitioners in schools, NGOs, Asylum institutions and universities.During the project, four transnational trainings in Berlin (Germany), Calabria (Italy), Gävle (Sweden) and Muğla (Turkey) were conducted, reaching a total number of 66 local mother-tongue trainers who migrated from Syria, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen who migrated and now worked as teachers, teacher assistants, voluntary mentors, cultural mediators and students with refugee children in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey. Moreover the partner representatives took part in the training by sharing their knowledge and learning from other settings in the partner countries.Based on this in-dense on the ground experience, the ENABLE partner consortium developed and evaluated a highly accessible training concept for Arab mother-tongue educators as well as for other practitioners in an iterative way, consisting of seven modules in English and Arabic. This training was further transformed into a training platform (www.enable-tamkin.com/training-platform) where tutors worldwide can learn with it in English and Arabic about self-learning, the concept of self-efficacy and motivation, inclusion and exclusion dynamics in the classroom and trauma in refugee contexts. A further element of the project, which lasted from 2017 to 2019, was the implementation of six multiplier events (two in Berlin, one in Calabria, two in Sweden, one in Muğla) reaching a wide variety of local and international participants working in the field of education and integration in addition to the project partners' network. The project results have also been disseminated at more than 25 international and national conferences and seminars and through four publications to an audience of researchers, teachers, pedagogues, teacher students (further publications are already in the making).The project has given the often underrepresented and unprivileged group of Arab mother-tongue teachers in their new societies an initial professionalization and visibility in the public discourse. Moreover, mother-tongue trainers highly benefited from the trainings by better understanding the situation of refugee children, better knowing how to deal with children in different situations and becoming a better learning mentor. The children profited from teachers that understood better their situation and could better become positive learning mentors. Finally, Enable managed to open up an intensive knowledge exchange about the integration in schools, the Asylum systems and the role mother-tongue educators in diverse European contexts.

The TEMPLATE project aims at strengthening the professional competence profile of pre- and in-service teachers who want to fully implement the recommendations of the Council of Europe for the use of plurilingual approaches in (foreign) language education.Teachers have to face the increasing need to cope with the changing landscape of the teaching profession for plurilingual education and the management of technology mediated teaching practices: on the one hand they have to teach in classes where there are different L1s, on the other hand they are required to integrate those languages in a plurilingual approach and make use of technology where and when it can potentially add value. In order to fulfill these requirements teachers need a specific training in comprehensive approaches that take into account different aspects related to their profession in the 21st century.The main target group of the project are teachers involved in FL teaching, CLIL activities and project-based learning. They will be involved in a training that integrates the pedagogical aspects with the content knowledge and the digital tools (TPACK model) that might be effectively applied in class in an innovative framework that will set the bar high in terms of innovative practices and teacher training programmes across EuropeThe activities proposed through an internet platform and a set of webinars will strengthen the profile of the teaching profession enhancing the teachers’ pre- and in-service education and professional development; they will support teachers in developing innovative teaching methods, especially to promote competence-oriented teaching and learning in FL and CLIL education; they will enhance the teachers’ digital literacy and promote the use of ICT (with particular reference to Computer-Assisted Language Learning CALL) as a good practice to approach plurilingualism.Furthermore, the findings of related SLA research will be made accessible to teachers by promoting researcher-teacher collaboration and teacher-research, and by involving teacher-educators. This approach will bridge the gap between research on the acquisition, learning and teaching of plurilingualism and the actual teaching practice. The project will involve the following participants:- local schools and collaboration with regional school offices- in-service teachers (involved in teacher design teams)- pre-service teachers (university students designing tasks as part of their course activities or as key content of their final thesis/course project)- teachers to be involved in the webinars and dissemination activities (FL teachers, CLIL teachers, L1 teachers working in plurilingual contexts)- other stakeholders such as MFL expert colleagues (DaF, FLE, ELE, Italian as L2) will also be involved in the design of the training courses and in the dissemination activities for specific target groupsA set of more practical modules will integrate the theoretical framework, focusing on specific situations and learning/teaching plurilingual contexts (CLIL related projects, MALL and ICT tools, project-based teaching/learning) with case studies implemented by the teachers involved in the project that will be discussed and presented as part of the training. After the webinars and the activities proposed on the project interactive platform, teachers participating in the training will be challenged and coached to put theory into practice, applying the methodologies and tools they have been presented to their very own situations and they submit a report with materials and results of their case studies to the project partners to receive feedback and as part of their 'teacher as researcher' development.TEMPLATE open educational resources will be freely available on the project website so that a greater number of teachers, teacher trainers and researchers will be able to benefit directly from project results. It is expected that teacher educators all over the world will be able to use the professional development modules to educate pre-service and in-service teachers on the effective use of technologies for the implementation of plurilingual-inspired foreign language education.

Context/background of the projectThis professional development project supports interactive approaches to language teaching with technology. It took a collaborative action research approach with researchers, teachers and learners of all ages creating open educational resources to support language teachers in integrating a variety of new technologies into effective communicative and task-based language teaching. The project: a) involved project teachers in in-depth and ongoing collaboration and reflection on how language teaching can promote language acquisition; b) used on this work to create a new multi-lingual open education resource [OER) website portal (www.itilt2.eu) with videos of real classroom practice; c.) created associated e-resources and library including examples of technology-mediated teaching practice, d.) piloted an online community of practice to explore and record innovative practice in language teaching using technology. The iTIL2 project built on the highly successful iTILT (interactive Technologies In Language Teaching) funded by European LLPs (KA2 Languages), which focused on using the interactive whiteboard (IWB) for teaching foreign languages. Extensive resources, including videos from real classrooms, were hosted on the original project website (www.itilt.eu). With this background, iTILT2 built on a well-designed open educational resource and an experienced team with complementary skills & a successful collaboration. The iTILT2 project developed and extended our existing work and further supported language learners and teachers in making the most of the acquisitional opportunities offered by educational technologies. iTILT2 moved beyond the IWB to focus on developing effective teaching & learning of second languages with a much wider range of new and emerging interactive technologies (such as iPads, tablet PCs and videoconferencing software), both independently and in combination. The data collection/professional development cycle included extensive teacher development involving researcher input and peer collaboration using face-to-face and online spaces, followed by two iterations of classroom filming and participant interviews. ObjectivesThe objective of iTILT2 was to promote effective foreign language teaching and learning by supporting teachers in their integration of a variety of interactive technologies into communicative classroom practice. This was achieved by producing a multilingual web site, hosting videos and other project resources for the professional development of primary, secondary, and higher education teachers and lecturers. Number and profile of participating organisationsThere were 6 partners (2.1 below), all of whom had worked together previously on the first iTILT project. The team had a very wide range of expertise, including university teaching, research, teacher-training, consultancy and skills in dissemination. Description of undertaken main activitiesWe used an approach developed & refined during the first iTILT project based on collaborative action research, involving videoing classroom teaching and video stimulated reflective dialogue to include teacher and learner perspectives. This ensured the project was grounded in current classroom practice, but also reflected the research team’s expertise in effective language teaching with technology. This collaborative approach was used throughout the project & was a strong feature. We organised 3 multiplayer events to promote the project, findings & resources. Results and impact attainedThe project successfully developed, promoted and disseminated new and innovative practice in supporting interactive language teaching in diverse European languages using ICT. We produced an open educational resource multilingual website (www.itilt2.eu) to host O1-4: 117 video examples of the use of interactive technologies in second language teaching; a professional development e-resource; 3 mini-guides; online library. In collaboration with teachers, classroom activities were planned, videoed, edited & tagged to produce video examples of real teaching situations. Teacher and learner comments were used to help illuminate the video resources in primary (UK, FR, DE) and secondary (BE, FR) schools and tertiary education (TK, FR, DE), with resources in five languages. In addition, we worked with teachers to produce a professional development e-resource, pilot an online community of practice and produced three mini guides in e-book format. The web site also allows users to search a wide range of videos from the different sectors and to the ability to download our resources and find a range of other technology-related language teaching materials in the selected languages. Evidence form the multiplayer events (4. below) shows the positive impact on the teachers involved. As the resource is web-based it provides a resource which can be freely accessed anywhere with an internet access.