Societies are becoming more and more multilingual and plurilingualism as a competence is valued all over Europe. Languages however are not all promoted on the same level, some being considered as more beneficial than others on the job market, despite the fact that research has shown that taking into account home languages affects positively children's well-being and motivation for learning. Each year since 2014, DULALA organises Multilingual Kamishibai Competition. From 2018 onwards, this competition is hosted in other territories by educational actors who have joined KAMILALA network (www.kamilala.org). The University of Aveiro, The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Autonomous region of Aosta Valley, partners of this Erasmus + project are members of KAMILALA network. The competition offers 3-to-15-year-old children the opportunity to create a story according to the kamishibai format, using four languages of various statuses including the language of the school. This group project invites languages and skills that are sometimes ignored in the educational setting. The writing and creative process of this project enables children to develop their language competence through the school’s language and experiment intercomprehension and otherness as they discover different languages and, consequently, other visions of the world. This Erasmus+ project aims to show that Multilingual Kamishibai Competition, as it allows to experience creativity and (re)discover languages, is a tool that fosters social inclusion in educational settings. Attention will also be paid to its effects on the acquisition of the language of the school, children’s motivation and children’s learning achievements. Participants are 3-to-15-year-old children and their supervisors as well as parents who contribute to the project sharing their language expertise. As amishibais are the result of a narrative and artistic group creation project, at least hundreds of children and educators will participate. For instance, 600 pupils participated in 2018 in Italy, 2500 in France. DULALA, the University of Aveiro, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Autonomous region of Aosta Valley each organise their own Multilingual Kamishibai Competition. During this three-year project, these four partners will lead annual editions according to a set schedule, create and update pedagogical and information resources, follow participating classes and train professionals to Language Awareness through the scope of the kamishibai. Paris 8 University will assist groups of children as they create multilingual kamishibais and will support educational team members. The five partners are committed to produce teaching materials according to two formats: a supervisor’s guide on PDF format, which will be theoretical and practical for any candidate willing to join the competition with a group of children; a free online course, featuring videos and interactive activities that introduce Language Awareness through the scope of multilingual kamishibai. Finally, an engineering report focused on the organisation of a competition will resume this transnational experience and will be useful for any structure willing to set up a Multilingual Kamishibai Competition in its local territory. Thanks to our regular meetings, locally or via video-conference, to frequent e-mails and shared documents, our activities will evolve simultaneously. A three-day training course for members of the partnership will be based on the intellectual outputs of this project. It will enable us to test the transferability of our productions. Our final dissemination event in Spring 2022 in Paris will showcase the results of our intellectual outputs: conferences, workshops and roundtables will be organised to present, share and test our ideas. Expected results of this project include: an improvement of school climate and children’s well-being, increased motivation for learning, better communication between parents and educational team members, more tolerance and inclusion regarding social, cultural and linguistic diversity. In the long run, exposing the positive impacts of Multilingual Kamishibai Competition on a large-scale territory aims to prove families, educational professionals and European policy makers that valuing multilingual repertoires has a positive effect on social inclusion and academic achievement.
The association DULALA has developed various educational tools including the multilingual Kamishibaï. The expected results were an improvement in school climates and in the well-being of children, increased motivation for learning in general, easier communication between parents and educational structures, greater tolerance and inclusion with regard to social, cultural and linguistic diversity. The creation of a multilingual Kamishibai is a group project involving multiple artistic practices, languages and knowledge that are sometimes ignored in the educational structure. Children develop their language skills in the language spoken in school and experience intercomprehension and otherness through the discovery of other languages and therefore other visions of the world. From 2018, the Kamishibaï competition was extended to other territories by educational actors federated by the KAMILALA network, including the universities of Aveiro and A. of Thessaloniki as well as the autonomous region of the Aosta Valley. The Erasmus+ KAMILALA project has made it possible to strengthen collaboration between partners and produce common tools adapted to different European contexts.
Our societies are increasingly multilingual and multilingualism as a skill is valued throughout Europe. However, not all languages benefit from the same promotion, since some are considered more useful than others. The consideration of first languages, particularly in the context of migration, remains an invisible and poorly treated subject. “Unhappy bilingual” children, whose first language is devalued, denied, sometimes even persecuted, apprehend language as a conflicting domain of which they are, from birth, the losers. They are then exposed to: - "linguistic insecurity" - being ashamed of themselves - a poor relationship with the language of schooling perceived as arrogant and coercive and, more generally, a poor relationship with language, school, and school results. Thus, an OECD study (March 19, 2018) analyses the factors of academic success and well-being of migrant children. The latter are more likely than other students to fail to reach the threshold of academic competence, to experience a weak sense of belonging to school, and to be highly anxious about schoolwork.