Perceiving an existing vacuum in specific approaches to motivation and adult education, the present project aims to foster the contrast, analysis and exchange of motivational practices amongst the four participating institutions. By selecting, adapting and piloting in-class materials and testing hypotheses, as well as visiting each institution to see first hand the innovative practices developed there, we will be able to produce a new methodological framework that will hopefully allow for a reduction in school leaving, low self-esteem and the interiorisation of successful learning to learn strategies. Such a manual will be produced using a Creative Commons licence in the form of Open Educational Resource (OER) in EPUB3 format, ensuring their free distribution and non-profit use. Apart from increasing learning to learn techniques and reducing early school leaving thanks to better motivational techniques for adult learners, this project entails a metholodogical update on the teachers' part, who would receive a training course on Experiential Learning, as well as three workshops on different methodologies (Social and Emotional Learning, Metaphor and Storytelling and Autobiographical method) that will endow them with novel insight and ideas to apply case study approach to form hypotheses and test them as the project unfolds. The results of such analysis and contrast will be recorded in the aforementioned manual. What is more, a final multiplier event will serve the purpose of exploring new avenues of research in relation to motivation in adult education, as well as visibilising the project’s output, i.e. the manual. Beyond reinforcing the involved participants' interpersonal competence, and their students' motivation, this project will also serve the purpose of tackling early school leaving in adults, which is sometimes caused by lack of the proper motivational techniques in the classroom, as well as addressing the need for more inclusive methodologies. Work management and implementation will be be carried out in transnational teams, whereby the uniformity and coherence of the resulting manual will be ensured, together with the collective reflection on learning problems and learning solutions. The four institutions involved in this project share prior European experience and a common concern for the promotion of literacy in the field of adult education. In fact, one of our main goals is to ensure the transferability of the methological reflections and expected intellectual output (manual) throughout countries and educational segments, hence our inclusion in the project of a non-profit organisation school with a background on literacy projects (Addenda), a college for further education (Kinsale), a school of languages for adults (EOI Vigo) and a fundation (UNIEDA), with Modern Foreign Language teachers that offer a cross-sectional experience. In order to carry out the project, individual milestones will be set for the delivery of the materials to be tested and the time-sheets each member will have to send to the coordinator. Two teams will be selected (one for management, one for funding) to ensure the transparency of the whole process and its proper development. Webcalls will be carried out bi-monthly to discuss progress, arising problems and plausible solutions, as well as piloting results and tackling conflict management, if necessary. By means of transnational teams and a review process, the manual creation will follow a cooperative methodology based on respect for the set benchmarks and a spirit of exchange of ideas and practices. By April 2020, it is envisaged that we will have enough data so as to produce a meaningful manual that will have an immediate impact on our students' motivation and classroom dynamics, and the rest of the teaching staff's approach to the topic. Apart from this obvious impact at a community level, given the fact that the manual will be free and open to everyone, and the absence of a similar document elsewhere, its expected impact is of paramount importance in the field of adult education. Cooperation with local entities and regional stakeholders will be explored as the end of the project approaches to guarantee its sustainability beyond the project's lifespan. As with any other project, the expansion of its original outcomes as time passes by is foreseen, and partners will explore possible extensions of the original aim as its funded life comes to an end. In this sense, its long-term benefits can be considered both tangible, in the creation of a manual recording a novel motivational framework for adult learners together with an update of teaching methodologies from a transnational perspective, and intangible, in the promotion of literacy as a means of lifelong learning process and a multicultural awareness of the importance of motivation, whilst reflecting on new methodological approaches on teaching students with fewer opportunities or who come to education late in life.
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