The increasing number of refugees and migrants within EU countries forces all stakeholders involved in language education and integration to rethink traditional concepts of language education. Successful integration of migrants, especially in participatory processes, strongly depends on learning local foreign languages and intercultural competencies, without neglecting heritage languages and cultures. Having said this, language education is paramount for the successful inclusion of refugees and migrants in European societies. The EU·DO·IT online language learning platform will support learners – especially refugees and migrants – in their linguistic and cultural integration processes, by offering a multilingual learning tool that includes the most common languages of current migration contexts and offers opportunities for translanguaging and intercultural learning. EU·DO·IT provides an innovative and intuitive language learning system for the use in formal and informal contexts. EU·DO·IT strives to strengthen the role of stakeholders involved in formal, volunteer, institutional and non-governmental language education of refugees and migrants, by offering best practice tools and materials for teaching heterogeneous groups of language learners.EU·DO·IT actively contributes to multilingual education, engaging learners´ plurilingual repertoires through the integration of translanguaging activities. By training not only a new language (L2) but also students´L1s, learners will scaffold meaning, connect to their lifeworld, affirm their identities, and enhance awareness of how language works. Therefore, EU·DO·IT underlines the importance of L1 maintenance with regard to individual identity development. Further, EU·DO·IT offers language immersion in story environments in both L1 and L2, supporting the general language learning process. EU·DO·IT learners will not only learn languages: the multilingual story world of the different scenarios will allow for the development of intercultural competencies in order to support European values. The EU·DO·IT objectives focus on two modules. Module 1 provides A1 communicative scenarios in at least 10 different languages (e.g. asking & providing information; describing people, objects, places; shopping; travel; describing events in the past), including learning scenarios for interpersonal communicative cultural competencies. The user of the online tool will assume the role of a character (avatar) and discover language within these scenarios in a (serious) game setting based on complex non-linear dialogues which also include examples of inter- and intrasentential code-switching and code-mixing. Module 2 will further develop the existing A2/B1 story world of the Erasmus+ language learning platform MElang-E, by expanding the existing corpus to the EU·DO·IT language spectrum. This process of cultural appropriation and localization will allow target group learners who have gained some A1 knowledge to practice their L2 on a higher level, while at the same time deepen their L1 language skills and their intercultural competencies. The combination of these two modules will meet the requirements of modern language learning processes, which follow a multilingual approach of language education.The EU·DO·IT team consists of experts in language acquisition & teaching, intercultural competencies & training, game development & digital education, and language teaching of the target group. Most team members have a multilingual background and experience international collaborative projects. The develop and content of Intellectual Outputs will be prepared and discussed during Partner Meetings, based on the EU·DO·IT Need Analysis. The partners will work in task groups, using digital communication media in-between Partner Meetings. Outputs connected to the EU·DO·IT platform (e.g. content & software) will be tested in 4 Multiplier Events and refined according to the gathered feedback. These events will be organized at two stages (alpha & beta versions) and will include stakeholders from various institutions and organizations working in language education of target group learners in order to meet their requirements. The Multiplier Events will also function as dissemination events, offering workshops for language teachers of these institutions.EU·DO·IT will offer best practice language learning based on state-of-the-art language education to target group learners needing to acquire basic language knowledge. As a digital OER, EU·DO·IT will be available to a wide range of people. EU·DO·IT supports all stakeholders involved in language education of the target groups through material on translanguaging and plurilingual learning & teaching in heterogeneous groups. The project partners will make their knowledge of how learners can profit from EU·DO·IT educational concepts available to students and scholars by introducing EU·DO·IT knowledge into future seminars, publications, and education curricular.
The increasing number of refugees and migrants within EU countries forces all stakeholders involved in language education and integration to rethink traditional concepts of language education. Successful integration of migrants, especially in participatory processes, strongly depends on learning local foreign languages and intercultural competencies, without neglecting heritage languages and cultures. Therefore, language education is paramount for the successful inclusion of refugees and migrants in European societies. The EU·DO·IT project developed tools and materials to support language learning: The EU·DO·IT Platform (‘Module 1’), the extension of the pre-existing MElang-E platform (‘Module 2’), plus a wide range of supporting materials for teachers. The EU·DO·IT online language learning platform has been designed to support learners in very early stages of their language learning process, by offering a multilingual learning tool that allows learners to practice their basic English, German, French, Turkish, Spanish, Catalan and Luxembourgish in playful dialogue situations. The platform provides many opportunities for translanguaging by utilizing English (as a representative of the Germanic languages), French (as a representative of the Romance languages) and Arabic (as a representative of the Semitic languages) as supporter languages. Learners can build on their prior language knowledge through internationalism, cognates, or shared metaphors, and experience the importance of code-switching. The different varieties of the target languages – including non-native and learner varieties – are reflected in the platform, which recruited multilingual speakers for many of the voice acting roles. The MElang-E online language learning platform is a serious game for practicing common communicative situations in English. It situates English as lingua franca in a multilingual Europe, including the full range of plurilingual meaning making. Within the EU·DO·IT project, a new chapter, “Istanbul” was added to the serious game, which reflects the rich linguistic resources of this metropolis, especially Turkish and Arabic. Both products express positive attitudes towards linguistic diversity, acknowledge the value of plurilingual/translanguaging practices, and try to counter a monolingual habitus (Gogolin 1992) by making learners’ L1s a valued and visible part of the learning process. EU·DO·IT provides an innovative and intuitive language learning system for the use in formal and informal contexts. For the use in classrooms, a teacher handbook and a range of easy-to-use worksheets and activity suggestions have been developed. In short, EU·DO·IT actively contributes to multilingual education by engaging learners´ plurilingual repertoires through the integration of translanguaging activities, and to widening access to and full participation in society for refugees, recent migrants and other language learners through non-commercial language learning tools. EU·DO·IT has been developed by project partners from Universitat Ramon Llull – Blanquerna, Freie Universität Berlin, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, İstanbul Üniversitesi-Cerrahpaşa, Lycée Michel Lucius Luxembourg, and Tallinn University. The team consisted of experts in language acquisition & teaching, intercultural competencies & training, game development & digital education, and language teaching of the target group. As a digital Online Educational Resource, the EU·DO·IT Language Learning platform, the MElang-E serious game and the EU·DO·IT and MElang-E Teaching Materials are available on www.eudoit.eu.