The project EDINA GoPro (EDucation of International Newly Arrived migrant pupils - Professionalization of teachers for higher proficiency of pupils) aims at the expansion of the results obtained by EDINA (2015-2018), by putting a deeper focus on the development of the professional skills of teachers, no matter what they teach, in order to support them in the integration of Newly Arrived Migrant pupilS (NAMS). As results, EDINA led to the development to a webtool (www.edinaplatform.eu/en) about the reception and transition of NAMs, differentiation and intercultural competences for teachers. Through this development, EDINA helped to change mentalities of teachers and other stakeholders on, for instance, the use of the home language in education and was also influential in decisions made by local and national authorities on the funding of newcomer education. Based on this results, EDINA GoPro (2019-2022), by expanding the existing network through a consortium that consists of local/provincial authorities, schools and researchers from The Netherlands (Utrecht and Rotterdam), Belgium (Ghent and Liège), The United Kingdom (Leeds) and Spain (Oviedo), aims 1) to promote the exchange of good practices by developing an innovative methodology, 2) to draw a more precise picture of the reception of NAMS in Europe, by writing and updating country reports, 3) to fully exploit the toolset already available on the EDINA website, by designing a training module to develop specific teachers' competencies useful to optimize the reception, observation, transition and differentiation processes for NAMS and 4) to provide new online tools for teachers. In this perspective, the project will develop supporting material useful for all teachers involved in NAMS education, available online via the EDINA website. The EDINA GoPro project is an example of interdisciplinary collaboration. It involves teachers, school boards, local authorities and researchers, with backgrounds as diverse as linguistics, language acquisition, psychology, pedagogy and intercultural communication. We have in common to believe that valuing the cultural identity and the home language of NAMS is extremely important not only as a way to acquire the school language, but also to avoid delays in non-linguistic subjects. By helping not only language teachers but also teachers from other fields to understand and rely on the intercultural and interlinguistic processes at work in diverse classrooms, the modular program of EDINA GoPro will develop tools for the education of newcomer pupils in a way that is in line with their cognitive abilities, so that they will be able to exploit their full potential.
We aimed at establishing a close collaboration with school partners and stakeholders (teachers, head teachers, boards, policy makers and regional authorities) to achieve the following: 0 provide teachers with information and the needed skills to facilitate the reception and transition of NAMS in a regular classroom 0 for teachers to become able to rely on the pupils' linguistic background to increase their competence in the school language 0 for teachers are able to understand and support integration processes into regular classrooms 0 To involve teachers in the process of identity construction and development 0 To support teachers in transferring their knowledge of non-Latin alphabets Through teacher exchanges and an online resource platform the project, through teacher ambassadors, helped teachers professionalise and has given NAMs a more equal positition in society. The project wanted to develop several ready to use tools, materials and knowledge outputs and has done so in the form of 2 course modules, five country reports, and information base (website) and a good practice exchange tool (Padlet).
EDINA aimed to expand its network, to develop supporting material for teachers in NAM education by improving knowledge, skills and cooperation possibilities for municipalities, schools and teachers in order to better support NAMS in their educational and social potential. We promote exchanges of good practices, wrote country reports, exploited the toolset for didactic courses, optimised the exploitation of lingusitic backgrounds, facilitated team support and helped teachers with an effective understanding of intercultural communication and literacy. We support teachers and local/regional authorities by providing tools, training and information. Through this support, we give NAMS better chances within education and the labor market. The needs addressed: - a collaborative tool for exchanging knowledge and good practices - Professionalisation by learning to work as a team - expanding knowledge about bilingualism home languages - making use of the home languages in teaching multilingual classrooms - preventing underestimation of NAM students - avoiding confusion between (late) L2 acquisition and language impairment - ability to deal with intercultural challenges - knowledge about acquisition of reading and writing skills