THIS PROJECT AIMS TO SET UP A FRAMEWORK FOR ARTISTIC PROJECTS TO OFFER CHILDREN IN CLIL AND REFUGEE CLASSES THE OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE ART. ARTISTIC PROJECTS WILL BE DEVELOPED WITH LOCAL SCHOOLS IN A DESIGN BASED APPROACH. EXEMPLARY PROJECTS WILL BE CONDUCTED ON A LOCAL SCALE AND IN AN INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION BETWEEN SCHOOLS FROM THE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. THESE PROJECTS WILL BE ANALYSED AND ASSESSED BY USE OF THE FRAMEWORK. AFTERWARDS, THESE PRACTICES WILL BE SHARED AS E-RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS IN OTHER EUROPEAN CLIL AND REFUGEE CLASSROOMS. AIM. Research shows that refugee children and children of migrants are vulnerable when school education fails (PISA Vlaanderen, 2015: 16). During their training, teachers often lack sufficient knowledge and experience regarding the specific needs and opportunities related to multilingual classrooms. This project aims to fill in this gap by setting up an international and interdisciplinary artistic project that provides children of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds a save environment to create art. The artistic project will focus on creative expression and interaction. The use of the universal languages of visual arts, music and drama will enable newly-arrived pupils to interact more spontaneously with their peers because it lacks the conventional restrictions of a spoken and written language. Artistic workshops will aid to develop close, responsive teacher-pupil relationships and a powerful learning environment, along with cognitively stimulating activities to foster foundational learning skills. Emphasis on the accelerated improvement of language skills of multilingual children will reduce backlog and dropout and strengthen the learning process. Reinforcing cognitive learning processes by means of active learning, artistic-creative open processes and the involvement of multiple literacies will be beneficiary to all pupils. METHODOLOGY. Based on intensive consultations, teachers will reach a consensus regarding the demarcation, meaning and added values of artistic or creative activities when combined with more classical, cognitive centered ways of learning in multilingual contexts. Major target audience is refugee children and children of migrants between 5 to 12 years old. Teacher trainers and researchers will do the literature review, develop an artistic framework and an assessment tool. The consistency and quality of the development process will be monitored by a design-based research approach. Each of the partners will coordinate the ongoing work in the primary schools, will organize the international meetings, develop and conduct the assessment process. Pre-service and in-service teachers of primary schools will develop and try out workshops with the pupils and share them with their international partners using the openeducation.blackboard.com platform. The pupils of the primary schools will be involved in the art projects and will meet the children of the other countries thanks to the e-twinning platform. The families of these children will be informed about the ongoing activities. Artists and coaches of educational and cultural organizations will take part in the projects by providing support to school educators and the multiplier events. National policy-makers and educational decision makers will be invited to the focus groups and multiplier events. The output will be accessible online. EXPECTED IMPACT. The project will foster various innovative teaching formats for the creation of learner-oriented educational differentiation programs through the Integration of multiple literacies in the learning process. The participating organizations - PXL University College (Belgium), Porto University (Portugal), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) and Istanbul University (Turkey) – are very complementary in expertise. Each partner will analyze the merits of multiple literacies in a problem-based learning process combining arts education, culture and language starting from its own perspective. The project will evaluate if local evidence-based practices work in other European contexts. We will establish a benchmark for the national initiatives by creating a common framework and assessment tool that will have sustainable effect on the international level. The social cohesion and inclusion of pupils with a migrant background will convey positive perceptions, foster the ability to adapt to the culture of their new homeland and create strong drivers for personal growth and shared identity. Children between the ages of 5 and 8 years old are curious and respond spontaneously to stories, images, sounds and drama. This is an ideal window of opportunity for the project to intervene by strengthening their open attitude, to learn a foreign language as they work in a joint approach and to obtain a long-lasting creative attitude. It strengthens their key competences and fosters the basic learning skills as a whole.
THE ARTICULAN-TEAM SET UP A FRAMEWORK FOR ARTISTIC PROJECTS TO OFFER CHILDREN IN CLIL AND REFUGEE CLASSES THE OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE ART. The project fostered various innovative practices thanks to cross-fertilization of the participating organizations - PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hasselt (Belgium), Porto University (Portugal), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) and Istanbul Cerraphaşa University (Turkey) – all four very complementary in expertise. Each partner analyzed the merits of education through the arts combining different domains of arts education and focusing on divergent processes & appropiate challenges for children in multilingual classrooms. Responsive teaching was crucial for qualitative interactions and collaboration in small teams. To create a warm emotional climate and safe environment where children are given time and space to explore, experiment, support each other and connect in small groups. The project evaluated to what extent local evidence-based practices can be transferred to other European contexts. Focus on social cohesion, inclusion and multicultural understanding stimulated positive perceptions, fostered the ability to value different opinions and created strong drivers for active involvement, personal growth and shared identity. First of all we learned that multisensorial activities and modelling in teamteaching helps children to understand the goal of the workshop and the importance of different interpretations to feed the creative process. Focus on interdisciplinarity helps teachers to explain an activity for a creative process in a multilingual classroom. Combining different domains of arts education gives children the impulses they need to explore, to experiment and to experience a creative flow. It also helps children to interact in a meaningful way, because they give meaning to their creation in group, when they exchange ideas for a common goal. A warm emotional climate and focus on bonding help children to cross the speech barrier. We also learned that asking open questions out of curiosity helps children and adults to broaden their view and respect ideas, values and beliefs that are less familiar to them. We learned that teachers need to believe in the potential and the talents of each child and give impulses on personal growth. Teachers also need to model how children could listen with empathy, validate ideas and act with respect. This helps children to explore new horizons. Participants in our multiplier events and train-the-trainer sessions confirmed that this approach strengthens the open attitude of the children as they participate in a joint approach in a multimodal creative process. They started to download our eResources shortly after the multiplier event. Primary school teachers focused more on interactive learning and responsive teaching to support the creative process. Artists of cultural organisations and arts academies paid more attention to communication and interaction for language acquisition in multilingual groups. They all valued the output of the ArtiCULan-project. It strengthens their key competences and fosters the basic learning skills as a whole. National policy-makers and educational decision makers were invited to the focus groups and multiplier events. In one country policy makers and pedagogic advisors will focus more on arts education in refugee class and for lesson of foreign language education in the curricula of primary and secondary education. This has a positive impact on primary school teachers who are more motivated to professionalize their teaching inspired by the value of education through the arts. All output is accessible online on https://www.articulan.eu/.