European Lifelong Learning Awards for quality in mobility

The ceremony was an initiative of the Slovenian presidency of the European Union Council and was co-organised by the Ministry of Education and Sport of Slovenia and the European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture. 15 projects from different areas were awarded. In the Languages category the following projects received respectively the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards:

GOLD:

Lingu@net Europa Plus http://www.linguanet-europa.org

CILT, the National Centre for Languages

London, UNITED KINGDOM

The project provides support and resources for language learning. It guides learners in a choice of over 3.700 online learning resources, gives advice on overcoming common problems, and provides motivational tips. Lingu@net Europa Plus is an example of how technology and collaboration can successfully help in sharing resources and expertise across countries and language borders and fully responds to the increasing need for non traditional tools for promoting languages, as it allows continuous and flexible learning in a lifelong perspective. Furthermore, the resource centre represents an excellent tool for linguistic preparation previous to any mobility action. It provides, in fact, a number of language skills assessment and self-assessment tools, tailored language learning opportunities, and tools to refresh individual language knowledge.

SILVER:

FEEL - Funny, Easy, and Effective Learning about countries, cultures, and languages http://www.feel.vdu.lt Vytautas Magnus University

Kaunas, LITHUANIA

The project aimed at sparking interest in the languages of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and to introduce the cultures that lie behind these languages. It created a variety of products, such as calendars, language survival kits, brochures, and CDs with conversations in the languages of the project. Promotional activities included a European language festival in Brussels and local events in each partner country. FEEL targeted embassy staff, travel agencies, politicians, businesses and students, encouraging them to take an interest in the new official EU languages, and contributing to tourism and extended mobility in the target countries.

BRONZE:

Glossomuseum http://www.ecose.org

European Cultural Organisation-Social Education (Ευρωπαϊκός Πολιτιστικός Οργανισμός Κοινωνικής Εκπαίδευσης)

ECOSE

Athens, GREECE

The main objective of this project was to raise awareness of the official EU languages – especially the less widely used and taught ones - among European pupils (mainly 9-14 years old), teachers, young citizens and schools. The activities of the project focused on the creation of a mobile museum, the so called “Glossomuseum”, with educational hand-made materials about the official EU languages and the cultural characteristics of the EU Member-States. These materials include posters, vocabulary lists for comparative language learning, alphabetical mobile games, cards depicting characteristic letters from various languages, recorded narrated texts and big group games. 346 creative performances have been presented to 15653 children and young citizens, 334 teachers and 147 schools and organisations of all seven participating countries.

from left to right: the two representatives of Ling@net Europa Plus, M. Pedro Chaves of the Multilingualism Policy Unit, the two representatives of the Glossomuseum project, and the two representatives of FEEL project