MultiLib – The Multilingual Library for Children in Europe

MultiLib – The Multilingual Library for Children in Europe  

 

Language school PELICAN is a partner of the project MultiLib – The Multilingual Library for Children in Europe. The international project reacts on the coming of more than million migrants and refugees that crossed into Europe in 2015, parking a crisis, as countries struggled to cope with the influx. The stress is given to the children’s education towards openness towards diversity, as well as the pride on their origin and traditions. Primary school teachers who play a front-line role in education,  need to acquire a broader repertoire of teaching strategy to tackle the challenge of teaching increasingly multiethnic and multilingual classes.

 

The project provides teachers with a unique on-line library with 24 multulingual e-books in 6 language versions, plus 12 e-books in original languages of immigrants in Europe  (translated in 6 languages – Czech, Swedish, English, Italian, Greek and Turkish). A total of 156 e-books beautifully illustrated by picture book artists and accompanied by a Set of book-based Activities for Children and a Teacher Guide. Through the use of the resources, teachers enable primary school children, both from local and migrant background, to develop  a sense of social inclusion, enhance intercultural understanding, make children proud to share their culture and language and pleased to learn about others, acquire skills that will contribute to their future employment in a labour market and to enjoy collaborative educational activities with creativity and fun while enhancing love of reading, literacy, language and artistic skills.

 

Target groups:

  • Primary school pupils in six partner countries
  • Children from migrant and ethnic minority families in these countries
  • Teachers at primary schools working in multi-ethnic/multilingual environment
  • Educators and other personnel of primary schools dealing with children of 6-10 years of age

 

Two traditional fairy tales of each state and two newly-written fairy tales of each partner language, as well as the language of minorities (Arabic, Russian, Farsi, Urdu, Tigrinya and one of Nigerian languages), will be prepared. Thanks to the development games, children will be able to work with the stories, as well as the illustrations which will accompany the stories on each page.

 

Expected outputs of the project:

  • The MultiLib Library comprising 24 beautifully illustrated e-books in 12 languages
  • MultiLib Children Activity Set with culture and language activities created around the e-books
  • MultiLib Teacher Guide
  • Case Studies to highlight the effects of MultiLib book-based activities on primary school children
  • Replicability templates and Rules of participation to invite the global community to share additional children’s stories and children’s activities to the project.
  • MultiLib Repository (OER) and web 2.0 communication website

 

 

Applicant Organisation

Viksjöfors skola, Sweden

Viksjöfors skola is the primary school located about 300 km north of Stockholm, in distant isolated countryside. The amount of students is increasing rapidly due to high amount of arriving refugees, with 84 pupils of 6-12 age visiting the school recently. The in the school are very much focused on the learning of curricular subjects with artistic expressions.

Partners

The Mosaic Art And Sound Ltd., Great Britain

The Mosaic Art And Sound is a private company based in London, UK and founded in 2003.

It develops projects in two directions: education/culture and the arts. In the social field, The Mosaic has developed projects to enhance human relationships, addressed to adults and children, disadvantaged adults and ethnic minorities. In the area of education and culture, it has been mainly active in research and applications of music to enhance life at all levels, through research projects, applying it to formal and non-formal education, through training courses and live events of performing arts. It has also developed courses and projects to enhance social life and work opportunities through the arts.

International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, Belgium

Created by Lord Yehudi Menuhin, one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation (IYMF) has been set up as an international non-profit making association by Royal Decree in 1991 in Brussels. The  idea  of Yehudi Menuhin was to influence decisionmakers  at European level regarding education and culture, for a more inclusive and creative education since the early age.

PELICAN, Czech Republic

Jazyková škola s právem státní jazykové zkoušky PELICAN, s.r.o provides educational opportunities in the field of higher and adult education. Since it was founded in 2002, the school has transformed from a school of languages to an adult education centre.

The Research Committee of the Technical University of Crete, Greece

TUC/MUSIC (http://www.music.tuc.gr) was established in 1990 in the Dep. of Electronics and Computer Engineering of the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Crete, Greece. It is a centre of research, development and teaching in the areas of distributed information systems, application engineering, computer graphics, and simulation engineering.

University of Çukurova, Turkey

The Çukurova University Balcalı Campus, lying in the south-Turkey city of Adana, is among major universities of the country due to its modern substructure and modern facilities. At the present time, the university has 16 faculties, 5 Colleges, 12 Vocational Schools, 1 State Conservatory, 3 Institutes and 25 Research and Application Centers.

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