Migration inside Europe as well as into Europe has changed population’s demography and impacted the structures in societies. The various forms of migration are rising and national diversity in all European societies is increasing further. This challenge of diversity is most prominently felt in the education systems: on one hand, it is important to build socially cohesive society through the universal education, at the same time, supporting the maintenance and the development of minority languages and minority cultures is one of the European values. The same challenge is facing the universities in the European border areas – to provide universal higher education that will give professional skills for students entering the national and European labour market, at the same time supporting the linguistic identity of the border area minority communities. This project is initiated by four universities from European border areas (University of Tartu Narva College (ET), Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg (DE), Libera Universita di Bolzano (IT), Univerza na Primorskem (SLO)) to address the challenges in multilingual higher education.The main objective of the project is to develop innovative processes and methods in teaching in multilingual universities in European border areas. Specifically, the project aims to:1) Exchange best practice and support mutual learning in processes and methods of multilingual higher education. 2) Develop common approaches to multilingual higher education in Europe. 3) Disseminate the knowledge and know-how to the other relevant target groups about the multilingual higher education accommodating the diversity of European societies.The project aims at reaching out to more than 1300 people, namely the students and staff of the partner universities and key stakeholders, from university administrators to experts and policy-makers.To achieve the objectives and reach the target groups, the following activities are carried out in the course of the project:- Development of and piloting a freely accessible wholly web-based e-course (MOOC) "Multilingual Higher Education: approaches, processes and methods". The MOOC will be in the volume of 1 ECTS, an extended course of 3 ECTS additionally includes face-to-face seminar work with students/teachers. - Development of the study-book (pdf) that is based on the e-course. The study book is a methodological tool for academic staff and teachers. - Five learning and teaching workshops where a) training of the academic staff, b) teaching of the students and c) study visits to the border regions will take place. - Local and national results dissemination seminars where the issues discussed, partnership and intellectual outputs will be presented and disseminated to stakeholders (3 multiplier events).The results of the project and the longer term impact lie in:- the development of new and innovative know-how and teaching tools for multilingual universities in Europe. The innovative approaches focus on how to address pluralinguality in higher education, including teaching foreign languages will be disseminated to wider audience of stakeholders. - the establishment of the transnational strategic partnership between multilingual universities in European border areas. The network has potential to increase to large number of participating members and address common challenges through cooperation activities. We foresee the need for joint strategic cooperation to develop teaching as well as research in multilingual universities and about multilingual universities. - the improvement of the quality of teaching, the impact of multilingual higher education in European border areas and beyond. Innovative methods developed through mutual learning and cooperation will allow to improve the quality of the teaching in multilingual universities. - last but not least, the expected result is sensitising the European public and education stakeholders about the issues of the challenges of multilingual higher education, about the issues of multilingual universities in European border areas.
• Context/background of the project Migration inside Europe as well as into Europe has changed drastically, including various forms of migration, but the education systems are often with homogenous viewpoint. Education in all levels from primary to higher education faces today rather significant challenge to adapt to the diverse societies. Those similar challenges in different European border areas brought together those four universities. • Objectives The main objective was to share and develop innovative processes and methods in teaching in multilingual universities and multilingual schools in European border areas. The main aims were: 1) Exchange of best practice and support mutual learning about processes and methods in multilingual universities. 2) Develop new innovative tools for learning about multilingualism based on agreed common approaches. 3) Disseminate the knowledge and know-how to the other relevant target groups about the multilingual higher education that accommodates the diversity of European societies. • Number and profile of participating organisations 1) The University of Tartu in Estonia is a higher education institution (tertiary level) that offers 195 research-based graduate and postgraduate degree programs. Narva College, participating in the current project, is located near the Estonian-Russian border, focusing mainly on teacher education for multilingual classrooms, multicultural education, teacher training in CLIL. Languages of instruction are Estonian, English and Russian. 2) Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg is a higher education institution (tertiary level) in the south-west corner of Germany, near the border with France. Due to its geographic location, PHFR has specific expertise in teaching second language and developing different methodologies of second language learning, e.g. tandem-learning, CLIL etc. 3) The Free University of Bozen/Bolzano (Unibz) is also a tertiary level multilingual in Italy, located at the German-Italian border and multilingualism and internationality are its main characteristics. The Faculty in Brixen is responsible for initial and in-service/ongoing teacher training for the whole region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. 4) University of Primorska (UP) is a Slovenian national higher education organization (tertiary level), working as a centre of knowledge implementing European educational strategies. UP is located near the Slovenian-Italian as well as Slovenian-Croatian border, and it trains educators, teachers and other workers in kindergartens, schools and in other educational institutions. • Description of undertaken main activities - Development of a freely accessible wholly web-based e-course (MOOC) about multilingual education for wide audience with an addition of a Study Book, based on the e-course, providing extra materials, reading suggestions and instructions as a methodological tool for academic staff and teachers, but also for an individual learners to study the topics more profoundly. - Five learning and teaching activities so that each partner institution hosted, and therefore took advantage of at least one. The LTT consisted of training of the academic staff, teaching of the students and study visits to the border regions. - Local and national results dissemination workshops were organized where the issues were discussed, partnership and intellectual outputs were presented and disseminated to stakeholders (3 multiplier events). In addition, the lead partner introduced the results to about 350 stakeholders in Narva at a large educational event. - Four partnership meetings took place additionally alongside the learning-teaching activites. • Results and impact attained - The exchange of best practices took place supporting the mutual understanding about the processes and methods in multilingual context as well as how to how to address pluralinguality in higher education and how to teach second/foreign/additional languages. As a result a set of innovative know-how and teaching materials were created for the multilingual universities in Europe, also for every person interested in the issues of multiple languages in a family, community, school etc. The MOOC: Multilingual Education was developed with additional Study Book for further and more advanced level of learning. - The quality of teaching, especially that concerning teaching languages, definitely improved in all participating universities, as the teaching-learning activities were always followed by an elaborating discussions, which the participants found highly useful for their everyday job. - As a long-term benefit, the network between the participating members was established with ideas for further strategic cooperation in teaching and research. - The project definitely drew attention to the topic of multilingualism emphasizing recognition of and tolerance towards linguistic diversity, raising interest in further developments in education.