Young migrants
Supporting multilingual classrooms

One school, Many Languages (January 2022) – this attractive brochure has been designed as a practical resource for primary school teachers. It contains links to lesson plans, videos, audio resources that can be used in the classroom and articles following the latest research and best practice.

The toolkit has been designed by Mother Tongues to disseminate some of the key points from the Supporting Multilingual Classrooms national workshop, delivered in Ireland on 27th and 28th September 2021 by the ECML experts, Chantal Muller and Prof. Terry  Lamb. This event was funded by the European Union and the European Centre for Modern Languages.

In February 2022, The Irish Times featured Mother Tongues and the toolkit in an article:
“Speaking in mother tongues shows heritage is a class act – Embracing diverse languages inside the classroom gives all pupils a great advantage”.

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In response to the call for the 2022 round of “RELANG” and “Supporting Multilingual Classrooms” national workshops, a total of 27 requests from EU and ECML member states were received.
Events will take place between mid-March and mid-December 2022 in the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland – with slots for one-two further workshops still to be determined.

RELANG focuses on relating foreign/second language curricula, tests and examinations to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and Supporting Multilingual Classrooms focuses on the linguistic integration of migrant learners in schools across Europe.

These activities take place within the 9th edition of the European Commission – ECML joint action on Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning.

The European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe together with the European Commission are launching a new round of RELANG and Supporting Multilingual Classrooms workshops within the joint action on Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning. RELANG focuses on relating foreign/second language curricula, tests and examinations to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and Supporting Multilingual Classrooms focuses on the linguistic integration of migrant learners in schools across Europe.

The activities are scheduled to take place between mid-March and mid-December 2022, each initiative offering up to 9 national workshops during this period. In view of the ongoing pandemic, workshops will be delivered in a combination of online and face-to-face formats.

The call is open to current European Union member states and the additional member states of the ECML until 16 February 2022.

For further information, please contact Adelina Rosca (adelina.rosca@ecml.at), the ECML-EU cooperation agreement coordinator.

Local organiser: Gabriele Isak, PH Kärnten

ECML experts: Brigitte Gerber, Switzerland; Chantal Muller, Belgium

Participants: 19 (foreign language teachers, students in the teacher training programme, policymakers)

“Supporting Multilingual Classrooms offered excellent opportunities for raising awareness for the needs of multilingual learners, for developing plurilingual competences and for promoting a positive attitude to linguistic and cultural diversity. The practical examples, plurilingual activities, digital tools and intercultural approaches showed a variety of methods and materials that can actually be used in the classroom. The two very competent ECML representatives, Brigitte Gerber and Chantal Muller, gave insight into various ECML projects and materials, they provided links to the projects and created a detailed PowerPoint presentation and a Padlet with further information and activities that participants can also use in the future.

The participants (mainly university and college of education lecturers and students) were very interested in the materials, methods and approaches and took part actively in the activities. All in all, the workshop gave the participants a whole range of ideas, materials and approaches that they can put into practice in the classroom.”

Gabriele Isak, local organiser, 28 October 2021

ECML project website: Supporting multilingual classrooms – EU-ECML cooperation agreement 2020-2021 "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning"

Local organiser: Soraya Sobrevía, Mother Tongues

ECML experts: Terry Lamb, UK; Chantal Muller, Belgium

Participants: 20 (teachers of other subjects/teacher educators, teachers of the language of schooling, policymakers/ curriculum writers, speech and language therapist, home school liaison)

“The SMC workshop in Dublin was a success! Despite it being online, it was well attended and very well received by participants because the training modules were adapted to meet the participants’ different needs. The ECML experts were very knowledgeable in the topic. There was time spent guiding us through a dedicated section on the ECML website with key resources for multilingual classrooms. Judging by the feedback we heard, everyone seemed very happy with the sessions devoted to discovering how to draw on children’s heritage languages as a rich resource for learning. We would strongly recommend hosting this workshop in your setting.”

 Soraya Sobrevía, local organiser, 12 October 2021

ECML project website: Supporting multilingual classrooms – EU-ECML cooperation agreement 2020-2021 "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning"

Organisatrice locale : Karine Dekeukelaere, Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles

Expertes du CELV : Catherine Carré-Karlinger, Autriche; Mercè Bernaus, Espagne

Participants : 30 (enseignants de langues étrangères, enseignants de la langue de scolarisation, décideurs politiques/ rédacteurs de programmes, administrateurs scolaires)

“Nos contrées accueillent de plus en plus de populations migrantes. Les enfants qui les accompagnent ont besoin d’un accueil scolaire adapté, spécifique et de qualité pour leur donner un maximum de chance pour les accompagner dans leurs efforts d’intégration sociale et scolaire. Ce sont ces défis que les écoles et les enseignants doivent surmonter en étant bien outillés.

Les ateliers proposés par le ECML-CELV sont encadrés par des experts de grande qualité soucieux de partager leur connaissance et leur savoir-faire dans ce domaine. Les ateliers sont construits de telle sorte que la progression dans la réflexion soit garantie pour permettre à tous les participants de transférer les idées présentées à leur propre réalité scolaire. Cette activité est facilitée par la participation ciblée de plusieurs membres d’un même établissement scolaire. La présence du chef d’établissement est un atout et contribue à la mise en place d’une politique d’accueil et d’accompagnement harmonisée et commune dans l’école.

La multiplication des exemples concrets et les moments d’échanges en groupe apportent une valeur ajoutée pratique au travail effectué. En permettant aux participants de prendre le temps de réfléchir dans un contexte confortable des outils pédagogiques peuvent être construits. Ne passons pas à côté de cette offres”

Karine Dekeukelaere, organisatrice locale, 12 octobre 2021

Site web du projet du CELV : Valoriser les classes multilingues ‒ UE-CELV accord de coopération 2020-2021 « Méthodologies et évaluation innovantes dans l'apprentissage des langues »

Local organiser: Lekh Baral, Kaja Haugen, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

ECML experts: Katja Schnitzer, Germany; Catherine Carré-Karlinger, Austria

Participants: 18 (foreign language teachers, teachers of other subjects, teacher educators, teachers of the language of schooling)

“The Supporting Multilingual Classrooms workshop was held in Bergen, Norway on 23 and 24 September 2021. The workshop was organised at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences through the research group Analysing and Assessing Linguistic Multicompetence. The online workshop welcomed teacher educators, pre-service and in-service teachers from across Norway. ECML coordinators Katja Schnitzer and Catherine Carré-Karlinger led the participants through working with attitudes toward plurilingualism, teaching in a multilingual environment, languages as a bridge for successful education, and how to build a whole school approach.

The workshop was held in the light of the Norwegian curriculum reform in 2020, where multilingualism is explicitly valued as a resource. A number of ECML projects (e.g. Maledive, Illey, FREPA/CARAP, Marille, PlurCur) were presented and discussed in light of the Norwegian context (see e.g. Bjarnø, Nergård & Aarsæther, 2017; Krulatz, Dahl & Flognfeldt, 2018).

It was particularly impressive to see the level of engagement among the participants in working with tasks/activities following multilingual approach. This is an indicator of how adopting a multilingual approach can enhance engagement among the learners.”

Lekh Baral, Kaja Haugen, local organisers, 1 October 2021

ECML project website: Supporting multilingual classrooms – EU-ECML cooperation agreement 2020-2021 "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning"

Local organiser: Katerina Konstantinides-Vladimirou, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth

ECML experts: Katja Schnitzer, Germany; Mercè Bernaus, Spain

Participants: 35 (foreign language teachers, teachers of the language of schooling, policymakers/ curriculum writers, school administrators)

“The workshop ‘Supporting Multilingual Classrooms’ which was organised by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth in Limassol, Cyprus in collaboration with ECML has been a success. The two ECML experts, Merce Bernaus and Katja Schnitzer have, through their lively presentations, interactive approaches, and teaching-learning techniques, enlightened the audience with new knowledge and perspectives to use in their classrooms and schools. The audience consisted of teachers of Greek who teach many periods in the migration biography classrooms of secondary education, and teachers of English.

The workshop has added value, ideas and practices to the policy of student migration biography, a policy upon which the Ministry of Education invests programmes aiming to enable young migrants to integrate in the education system of Cyprus without difficulty. To achieve this aim, there is a Migration Biography Committee in the Ministry of Education which focuses on the improvement of teachers’ knowledge and skills necessary for those students’ induction.

At the school level, emphasis is given on the learning of methods and techniques that would help migrant students to learn Greek as a second language more easily in order to communicate with others (students, teachers), and develop a sense of ownership in our schools. The workshop has contributed a lot to the learning of interactive and creative methods. Each school organises activities, every year, which engage student migrants and make them develop emotional literacy besides literacy (reading and writing). The workshop has given to teacher participants many ideas of activities that indicate acceptance and respect to the diversity of people and, more specifically, students.

The workshop ‘Supporting Multilingual Classrooms’ constitutes an educational innovation for secondary education, signifies progress, and empowers teachers to continue to invest energy, time, effort and love in their classrooms. In general, the workshop has added high value to teacher professional development and learning. The participant teachers are now richer in interactive methods, teaching techniques, and emotional intelligence and using these in their teaching job, they can make their classrooms flourish!”

Katerina Konstantinides-Vladimirou, local organiser, 22 September 2021

ECML project website: Supporting multilingual classrooms – EU-ECML cooperation agreement 2020-2021 "Innovative methodologies and assessment in language learning"