According to the PISA Study, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, immigrant students score below non-immigrant students in most PISA-participating countries, both before and after accounting for socio-economic status. So what is the fundamental difference between immigrant students and non-immigrant students if socio-economic status is not responsible? It is that the likeihood increases of immigrant families maintaining a language in the home that is different from the language of school. The maintainance of a different home language to the language of school renders the student at a disadvantage in terms of the acquisition of the language of school, comprehension of teaching and in terms of the feasibility of support with school work. This issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency because it is negatively connected with many disadvantageous outcomes such as decreased capacity to comprehend the education available, increased early school leaving, low literacy levels, decreased employability, an inability to socially intergrate fully and ultimately an increased likelihood of a life of poverty. The project UP TO SPEED has been designed to address, recognise, assist and monitor the linguistic challenges difficulties faced by immigrant families who maintain a different home language to that of the language of school. It offers an innovative teaching method on how to support students from these households through the gamification language learning to afford them increased sucess at school. To do so, seven partner institutions, including school authorities, social entities supporting migrants and experts in school education, language learning and ICT based pedagogical technologies from UK, Ireland, Spain, Bulgaria, Turkey and Austria, will work together to design and develop the following products: - IO1 UP TO SPEED Training Curriculum on how to better support students with a different at home language in a primary school education through innovative pedagogical methods based on digital gamification of language learning. - IO2 Digital Gamification Tool - IO3 Digital Assessment Tool - IO4 Guidelines for Intervention based on Case Studies - IO5 UP TO SPEED Set of Instructional Videos The UP TO SPEED digital game will allow teachers to create games which support the acquistion of the language of school, digitally monitor and assess students through a complimentary assessment tool, which provides report based in visual language of the student's progress. The games will allow students to challenge a family member or carer into engagement with their school work and if the challenge is accepted it can increase their family member/carers level of language acquisition by proxy. Given that all languages are structurally different each partner will design and develop UP TO SPEED'S Guidelines for Intervention on a language by language basis based on Case Studies from real life contexts in the countries represented by the partnership Target users of the project are primary level teachers, support teachers and school leaders; 70 of them will be directly involved in the project activities. Target beneficiaries are immigrant families who maintain a different home language to that of the language of school; 135 beneficiaries will be directly involved in the project. 496 stakeholders and 1.000 dissemination recipients will be also reached during the development of the project activities. The project will strengthen the profiles of teaching professionals by supporting their professional development, increase their ability to deal with diversity in the classroom, improve their linguistic awareness, provide them with strategies to manage a multilingual classroom and improve their ICT skills. Through its digital tool output it will facilitate accurate assessment of individual students and class language acquisition progress and track of the level of support and collaboration of student’s families and carers through playful competition. The expected impact of the project UP TO SPEED on participants, participating organisations, target groups and relevant stakeholders fall under the following categories; pedagogical impact, impact on the target user training practices and employability, impact on the target groups readiness for the labour market, impact on the participation of target groups in education, impact on ICT capabilities and Educational Technological Innovation. UP TO SPEED will support also schools in tackling early school leaving by increasing the quality of educational opportunities available, enabling the monitoring of language acquisition to ensure that that a lack of comprehension of course materials is reduced or eliminated as a factor in early school leaving in Europe.
The UP TO SPEED project aims to address, recognise, assist and monitor the linguistic challenges and difficulties faced by the children of families who maintain a different home language to that of the language of school. It offers educators and schools an innovative training curriculum and teaching method on how to support students from such households through the gamification of language learning to increase disadvantaged students’ success at school. Its objective is to build the knowledge, skills, competences and autonomies of school educators to use digital gamification and assessment tools with the language learning content that they have created for the children they teach. Finally, creating digital games introduces greater competitive fun and enjoyment as well as encourages teachers to challenge and motivate their students through offering rewards for completion of language tasks.
Language is the basic expression of one’s cultural identity and respect for linguistic diversity is a fundamental value of the EU. However, there is an increased likelihood of children from immigrant and migrant families being disadvantaged in accessing formal learning when the language at home is different to the language used in school. Language barriers which are not addressed early on, can lead not only to lower PISA test scores, but also to early school leaving, higher unemployment, increased poverty and lack of social integration. The OECD 2018 report ‘Equity in Education Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility” states that disadvantaged students not only have parents with lower levels of education, working in lower-paid jobs, they are also more likely to have an immigrant background, speak a home language that is different from the language of school, with an increased likelihood of lower academic performance and literacy issues. UP TO SPEED addresses the needs of teachers of children who have a different home language to that of school (DHLS), to digitally upskill them and provide resources for them to gamify and assess language learning competences to increase their DHLS students' success at school.