MUSILIB
Music for Children’s Multicultural Learning
Twenty-first-century children live in an increasingly interconnected, diverse and rapidly changing world. They need not only to develop their social skills to interact and engage with people from diverse cultures in a respectful way, but also appreciate and benefit from cultural differences. Although there are no doubts about the importance and necessity of cultural awareness and cultural understanding, how these can be taught at schools and what tangible outcomes there might be for children and the wider community remains a challenge. Partners of the new European MUSILIB education project from Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Greece, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom have decided to face this challenge in several ways.
CHILDREN STORIES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES TO DOWNLOAD HERE
We regularly add fairy tales in all 12 languages to this page. For each of the fairy tales, you will find a PDF file with illustrated text and for selected fairy tales, you will also find an audio recording by a native speaker.
Introduction of the MUSILIB project
The MUSILIB project will offer an expanded multilingual and multicultural online library for children, developed as part of the previous successful MultiLib project, containing 26 children’s stories translated into 6 European languages and 6 additional minority languages from each partner country. A total of 156 online illustrated books are complemented by a collection of activities and by a handbook for educators. All MultiLib materials are available for download on the project’s website.
Furthermore, project MUSILIB will provide new ideas, inspirations, methodologies, and tools by using a very effective medium: music, which is an indispensable expression of culture.
Main outcomes of the project
- Each story in the MultiLib e-library will be accompanied by a soundtrack produced by professional musicians using a traditional instrument of the culture.
- A Children’s Multicultural Music Instruments Library will be created. This e-library will contain photos of the instruments, sound files played with each instrument, an audio file with the name of the instrument in its original language, and a story of each instrument written by a children’s book author.
- A set of activities and a guide for teachers telling them how to use the library.
All Outputs of the project will be available in digital format and partners will be responsible in making sure that any technical solutions are children user-friendly, in order to give participants’ a sense of enjoyment and involvement in the project.
Target group
- Primary school pupils in seven partner countries
- Children of migrants and members of ethnic minorities in these countries
- Primary school teachers working in a multicultural/multilingual environment
- Educators and other primary school workers working with children at the first-grade level
Workshops
As part of the project, PELICAN will organise workshops at elementary schools in the Czech Republic to test the materials produced: teachers will work with the library and music recordings, a multicultural library of musical instruments for children, and a set of activities, whose draft versions will be handed over to all those participating in these workshops.
Project partners
Övermark skola (Finland), The Mosaic Art and Sound (Great Britain), Viksjöfors skola (Sweden), Spolek PELICAN (Czech Republic), Technical University of Crete (Greece), University of Cukurova (Turkey), Menuhin Foundation (Belgium)
Want to find out more?
Are you interested in this project and would like to include it in the classroom or learn more about it? Do not hesitate to contact us! We will be happy to meet you and explain everything. We also organise workshops within the project and all materials created within the project will be freely available for download or personal delivery. For more information email jurasova@skolapelican.com.
Photogallery
If you want to know more about the project, please contact us either by e-mail at jurasova@skolapelican.com, by phone at +420 774 742 296 or come visit us at Lidická 9, Brno. If you are interested, we would be happy to come to you and present you the project in more detail.
