The objective of this project is to improve literacy skills of multilingual children, who use one language at school and another language at home. The project will develop two main products aimed at achieving this goal: an interactive application for children called "Traveller between worlds" and a web page for teachers and parents "Multilingual Europe". The partnership is formed by 8 European organizations from different sectors, all necessary for the successful completion of the project: a programming company, three schools, University, a publisher, an NGO active in the Europe-wide promotion of multilingualism, as well as a PR-agency. Partners come from 5 countries: Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Lithuania. This project proposal was based on a jointly identified need to create an interesting and innovative tool for fostering multiliteracy of migrant children. Current methodologies and materials are comparatively traditional and do not meet the educational priorities of the EU or quality standards expected. The partners have a high motivation for the development of such tools, as they have been working for years in the field of language education, promotion of languages as well as the development of various activities to foster multilingualism and assist multilingual families.The project activities include the development of the app "Traveller between worlds" and the web page "Multilingual Europe" as well as an awareness raising campaign for teachers, stakeholders, parents, and the general public. Main target groups of the project are multilingual children, their teachers and parents. Target groups will be included in project activities from the beginning on and throughout the project, contributing to relevant and high-quality products. Main project results:- Application "Traveller between worlds" in 6 languagesThe app is created as a motivational tool to help children start the journey into multiliteracy. It will be based on an engagingly written stories, which will be interlaced with playful activities such as riddles, puzzles, word games, quizes etc. The app is based on the Content and Language integrated learning principles. With the use of the app, children will at the same time improve their literacy, science, ICT and cultural skills. The tool will contribute to the availability of OER in six languages, including LWULs. Many interactive features will make the app valuable for even a wider range of users than our own target group. - Web site "Multilingual Europe" in 6 languagesThe website will be built in order to promote our language application and multilingual education in general. It will contain information about the advantages of multilingual education in school and at home, didactic-methodology for the use of the app in classrooms, tips for teachers and parents on how to implement multilingual education, a forum for teachers to exchange their experiences as well as useful links to European projects and policies concerning multilingual education.In general we expect an impact on the multiliteracy rate of multilingual children in Europe, more specifically higher motivation of children to become literate in their mother tongue, a higher level of competence (science, literacy, languages, ICT, culture) by the users, higher awareness of families to the possibility of multilingual upbringing, higher level of awareness of teachers for the possibilities of multilingual education, higher level of awareness of schools about the importance of literacy related ICT use and more awareness of policy makers of the potential of ICT-based material for bilingual kids. Additional value of the project presents the approach to include teachers as multipliers for spreading best practices in multilingual education and offering guidelines and tips tailored for the use of ICT-based learning materials in schools. With our project we would like to contribute to the developments in the field of ICT-based learning and digital reading. Our partnerships expertise and interdisciplinary know-how, combined with user-oriented development stages and professional marketing strategies will help us develop a product, that will become a relevant and innovative example of e-reading materials for fostering literacy of children.
The main goal of the project was to develop didactic materials which would motivate multilingual children to practice their reading and writing skills in all their languages in order to help close the gap between the vocabulary of the school and home languages. In order to reach this goal an application for tablets called “Kuarki – Traveller between wor(l)ds” was developed. The app is a collection of witty illustrated stories, divided into 4 overall topics: Space, Earth, Life and The human being. The stories are based on topics ranging from biology, geography to physics and their objective is to provide a wholesome look at how knowledge is connected and intertwined. They are based on 36 questions, which often occupy children’s imagination, such as “Why are the oceans salty?”, “Why do I forget some things and others I don't?” or “How old is the Universe?”. The stories address the reader directly, and invite him/her to join Kuarki on his journey through different worlds. Witty tone of the stories and illustrations make reading a fun experience. Each story ends with exercises which help children revise the new words and check the understanding of the texts. While reading the texts, children can switch between languages or check the meaning of new words in their school language, in which they are likely to already know the word. The app is currently available in 10 languages - Croatian, English, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian and Turkish - which can be combined as needed for each child. Translation to further languages is planned for the future. This free educational application is suitable for iPads and different Android tablets. Due to large pictures and longer texts the application was not conceived for smartphones and does not work on them. The app is unique in its approach and represents a valuable tool for European parents and teachers. We combined the know-how of different institutions and individuals to form a fruitful collaboration between professionals writing literature for children, educators and linguists as well as app developers. During the development of the app, we involved our target groups in all relevant phases of the project. The result is a high-quality and innovative app, full of funny and informative stories, beautiful illustrations and language learning exercises. The collaboration between writers and educators ensures the usability of the app not only at homes across the world but also in schools – to foster language skills and multiliteracy of multilingual children, provide CLIL materials for foreign language learning, and motivate for learning natural sciences. The web portal kids.lingvo.info, available in ten languages, complements our application. The site was created to promote the app as well as multilingual education in general. It contains information about the benefits of multilingual teaching at home and at school, didactic-methodological advice on using the app in classroom, collection of activities related to children’s multilingualism which can be implemented during school lessons, tips for teachers and parents on how to implement multilingual education, and useful links to European multilingual projects and resources. The project has therefore contributed to new developments in the field of ICT-based language learning and digital reading. The App and the web portal were developed by a partnership of eight European organizations from different sectors: three schools, a university, a company in the culture and education sector, a new media agency, an international NGO and a public relations agency. The partners come from the following five countries: Germany, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The project was based on the need to create an interesting and innovative tool to promote multi-literacy among multilingual children. Partners have been highly motivated to develop the tools, having worked for many years in language education, language promotion and development of various activities to promote multilingualism and support multilingual families.