| Summary: |
This project aims to develop international and interdisciplinary artistic workshops in multilingual classrooms including children from 5 to 12 years old. We focus on refugee classes including pupils with a migrant background and on CLIL-schools willing to focus on multiple literacies and participation in civic and socio-cultural life. Stimulating the learning potential of each child via focus on multiple literacies and different learning preferences strengthens their personal development and enhances high-quality cognitive intellectual, social and aesthetic skills. It creates opportunities to work on transversal key competences through the monitored application of the features of creative processes that are characteristic for artistic activities in visual arts, music and drama. The starting point will be how arts strengthen the learning process in multilingual classrooms with the aim of promoting social inclusion processes. The project will strengthen the profile of in-service and pre-service teachers dealing with diversity in the classroom and will intensify the transformative potential of schools. It will foster open, nuanced and integer mindsets in order to contribute to the development of a high standard, conscious, multicultural citizenship, making careers more personally profiled and thus more attractive.
Target group. The refugee crisis prompted primary school to apply a multilingual approach both in refugee classes for newly-arrived pupils and in regular classes to develop awareness of different languages and multicultural identity and reinforce an open mind, dialogue and cooperation. Flanders and Brussels (northern regions of Belgium) welcome pupils from South East Europe, Venezuela, Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Belgium also has a large community of migrants from Italy, Turkey and Morocco who came for work in the period from 1970 to 1980. In Turkey, schools welcome mainly Syrian refugees, but also refugees from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, A  |
Summary
This project aims to develop international and interdisciplinary artistic workshops in multilingual classrooms including children from 5 to 12 years old. We focus on refugee classes including pupils with a migrant background and on CLIL-schools willing to focus on multiple literacies and participation in civic and socio-cultural life. Stimulating the learning potential of each child via focus on multiple literacies and different learning preferences strengthens their personal development and enhances high-quality cognitive intellectual, social and aesthetic skills. It creates opportunities to work on transversal key competences through the monitored application of the features of creative processes that are characteristic for artistic activities in visual arts, music and drama. The starting point will be how arts strengthen the learning process in multilingual classrooms with the aim of promoting social inclusion processes. The project will strengthen the profile of in-service and pre-service teachers dealing with diversity in the classroom and will intensify the transformative potential of schools. It will foster open, nuanced and integer mindsets in order to contribute to the development of a high standard, conscious, multicultural citizenship, making careers more personally profiled and thus more attractive.
Target group. The refugee crisis prompted primary school to apply a multilingual approach both in refugee classes for newly-arrived pupils and in regular classes to develop awareness of different languages and multicultural identity and reinforce an open mind, dialogue and cooperation. Flanders and Brussels (northern regions of Belgium) welcome pupils from South East Europe, Venezuela, Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Belgium also has a large community of migrants from Italy, Turkey and Morocco who came for work in the period from 1970 to 1980. In Turkey, schools welcome mainly Syrian refugees, but also refugees from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Canary Islands welcome mainly newly-arrived pupils from Italy, Morocco, China, the UK, Venezuela, Germany, Cuba, Romania, Colombia, Russia, France and Portugal. Porto welcomes mainly pupils from Brazil.
Research shows that meaningful tasks in artistic workshops stimulate language acquisition and involvement in the learning process (Reekmans, Roden & Nauwelaerts, 2017). "The arts can engage diverse learners and provide them with opportunities to share what they know" (Farokhi & Hashemi, 2012: 924). Integrating multiple literacies in the learning process is an example of experimenting with innovative teaching formats for the creation of learner-oriented educational differentiation programmes. WWhen you stimulate children to convert new information into mental images (drama and visual art) it leaves a lasting impression (Marzano, 2012). The publication 'Common European Framework of Reference for Visual Literacy' from the European Network for Visual Literacy 'ENVIL' (Wagner & Schönau, 2016) will guide us in the development of our framework. Research has also shown that a positive classroom climate, characterized by close, responsive teacher-student relationships and a strong connection between them, along with cognitively stimulating activities foster foundational learning skills (Cadima, Verschueren, Leal & Guedes, 2016; Cadima, Leal & Burchinal, 2010). Art can also be organized through group projects, thus enhancing student cooperation and group bonding, because there are many art forms which are collaborative. Focus on cultural identity and arts education can be considered as the verbal expression of culture. As we focus on active learning or student-centered education in multilingual classrooms, pupils feel the need to communicate in a common language as they work mutually in a joint approach (Kuyumcu, 2012). Thanks to this project we can evaluate if local evidence-based practices also work in another European context. Each country has its own educational system with a clear focus on a pedagogic approach and welcomes pupils from different migrant backgrounds. We are very complementary in our expertise. In addition we can establish a benchmark of the national initiatives based on our common framework and assessment tool in order to secure a sustainable effect on an international level.
We study the relation between culture and language since language is part of culture and is formed by culture. "Some people say that language is the mirror of culture, in the sense that people can see a culture through its language" (Jiang, 2000: 328). We analyze the merits of multiple literacies in a problem-based learning process combining arts education, culture and language. It will boost pupils' confidence and self-esteem, as it sets them on a par with their classmates and stimulates them to participate on equal communicative terms" (Farokhi & Hashemi, , 2012: 926). It strengthens the learning process as a whole. |