What tools can support the teaching process of a second language to children by parents and educators?
The POLYGLOT project – Multilingual education in preschool age – tried to answer this question by developing interactive resources and guides for parents and educators of children aged from 0 to 6 years old. These resources have been presented during the final conference of the project, which took place on 31st August 2017 in Palermo.
The event took place at our office and involved different civil society realities such as teachers, educators, volunteers in the field of education, university students and parents interested in the topic of bilingualism in childhood.
We opened the meeting with a general presentation of the objectives, the results and the progress of the project, and then continued with an introduction of the main products developed by the partnership and available on the polyglot.expert web site.
Moreover, Carmelo Pollichino, a project manager with a deep experience in the creative thinking methodology, who intervened during the final event examining the benefit of bilingualism and creative thinking in childhood, gave a valuable contribution to the discussion.
The meeting ended with a practice session based on the e-courses for educators and parents developed by the consortium: two free online courses to promote the learning process of a new language in kindergartens and in the family environment.
The courses give you the possibility to learn new approaches based on the Open Educational Resources (OER), which allow the child to learn a language in a playful and interactive way.
Even the final refreshments were a moment of exchange and comparison between students, parents, teachers and curious about the topic of bilingualism in preschool age.
POLYGLOT is a 3-year project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, Key Action 2 – Strategic Partnerships in the field of school education, aiming to foster language learning from an early age by exploring the potential of Open Educational Resources and the new opportunities offered by media and by the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
The project involves the following partners:
- Kindervilla (Austria),
- Baby Erasmus (Spain),
- CARDET – Centre for Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology (Cyprus),
- First Private School Leonardo Da Vinci (Bulgaria),
- Mozaik Human Resources Development (Turkey),
- CESIE (Italy).
For more information about the courses, please contact giovanni.barbieri@cesie.org.
