Languages & Integration through Singing

Partnership

Teachers who tested the didactic unities

PARTNERSHIP

This project combines three European projects Grundtvig Learning Partnership, promoted by Federazione Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l’Europa: the first, “Languages and Integration through Singing”, carried out in the two-year-period 2008-2010, was dedicated to Italian, Romanian and Russian while the second one, "French and Spanish language competence through songs” (FRESCO) to be realized from 2010 to 2012, is addressed to French and Spanish and the third, "Find A Delightful Opportunity to learn Portuguese through Internet and songs” (FADO) to be realized from 2011 to 2013, is addressed to Portuguese.

Federazione Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l’Europa – FENICE – Naples, Italy – is a non-profit teacher association which supports any initiative favouring the integration of the intellectual resources of schools in the cultural growth of society, promotes and plans initiatives, training projects, refresher courses, the cultural improvement of teachers as well as research and experimentation in the teaching field, and takes part in the research and development of technologies in order to make learning easier. Furthermore it publishes a review called «Scuol@Europa» sent to all secondary schools in Italy and a newsletter sent out three times a year in three languages (IT, EN, FR) all over Europe to institutions and policy makers. The newsletter contains information on its activities in transnational partnerships in European Projects (17 until now). The aim is to let a wider audience know the products and the methods developed by transnational partnerships, and to encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences.

In the achievement of the three projects FENICE has been supported by "ITIS Galileo Ferraris" (Napoli - Italy) as ASSOCIATED PARTNER. "ITIS Galileo Ferraris" is a State secondary technical school dealing with Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, provided with multimedia experts of ICT and technologies of management of sound and video (technical sound, video technician, web designer, web master, …) as well as of a laboratory equipped with necessary instrumentation for the accomplishment of the material sound and video.

The FENICE's partners in the first project “Languages and Integration through Singing”, were institutions from Bulgaria, Romania and Slovak:

Euroinform Ltd - Sofia, Bulgaria - is a company concerned with designing and introducing modern teaching methods in adult training and language teaching. Among the main goals of the organisation there are development of motivation for language learning among adults, including learners with special education needs, with the view to improving their employability, soft skills training, development and delivery of methodology and training of trainers in language learning and introduction of innovative methodologies in formal and non-formal education. The company cooperates with a number of educational establishments, adult training centres, language schools, etc. The organisation pays particular attention to the needs of adult language learners with visual impairments and explores and develops teaching methods to encourage their creativity and motivation.
EuroEd Foundation - Iasi, Romania - is accredited by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research and is part of the national education system, the Life Long Learning section. The Foundation is a founder member of QUEST (The Romanian Association for Quality Language Services) and QUEST is an associate member of EAQUALS (The European Association for Quality Language Services). EuroEd Foundation includes now the Regional Centre for Education and Communication (life long learning - adult education: local, regional, national and international professional training) and houses, the International Language Centre (foreign language courses and Romanian as a foreign language), the Regional Centre for European Integration (the implementation of local, regional, national and international projects) and the EuroEd Kindergarten and Primary School. Furthermore EuroEd Foundation has its base in Iasi, a city near the border with Moldova and with close relations with institutions there.
The E-KU Institute of Language and Intercultural Communication in Nitra, Slovakia is a language education provider, operating with all age groups interested in learning any of these languages: English, German, Italian, Russian, French, Spanish and Slovak for Foreigners. Therefore it is highly interested in employing new, modern and innovative teaching methods in its language programmes.

In addition to the above the following institutions played an active role in the Partnership as ASSOCIATED PARTNERS

"Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale" (Napoli - Italy) This institution is the branch of Ministry of education at provincial level. It coordinates the schools of each level in the province of Napoli (2310 schools) in Campania Region. It will be involved in piloting of the developed materials and disseminating the project results within its Adult education Centres called CPT together with the other two branches of Ministry of education of Caserta and Frosinone.

"Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale" (Caserta - Italy) the branch of Ministry of education at provincial level. It coordinates the schools of all levels in the province of Caserta (911 schools) in Campania Region.

"Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale" (Frosinone - Italy) the branch of Ministry of education at provincial level. It coordinates the schools of all levels in the province of Frosinone (640 schools) in Lazio Region and a network of institutions for a local project aimed at the integration of foreigners.

The FENICE's partners in the second project, "French and Spanish language competence through songs” (FRESCO) are institutions from Romania and Spain:

The University of Bucharest is one of the most important institutions for higher education in Romania and every year it involves in its activity more than 30,000 students specializing in various fields of learning. As it has been directly involved in the reorganization of the Romanian teaching system, the University has taken measures and conceived several projects leading to the elaboration of new curricula, national laws and regulations. In 2000 the University received a special award from the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports because of its great merits which make this institution one of the first 500 universities in the world. Being interested in national and international collaborations, considered a priority, the University has concluded many professional agreements (international masters and courses, doctorates) and has taken part in various European programmes, such as Erasmus, Lingua, Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci, Unica, Amos, Tempus, Tempra, etc).The Department of French in the Faculty of foreign Languages and Literatures, with its 50 members, offers great opportunities of training in linguistics, literary studies, translation and translation studies, applied modern languages, teaching methodology and anthropology. The students specialising in French must attend a course of methodology and a six-month teaching stage and during them they have to hand out teaching projects. The University is also in charge of the teachers� in-service training. A hundred a year follow the courses planned for them.
IES "Ribeiro do Louro" is a secondary high school giving general education, vocational training and courses for lifelong learning. It is situated in Porrino (Pontevedra), Spain and has 68 teachers and about 600 hundred students. Among its specialised courses it has advanced training courses in International Trade, Management, Telecommunication Systems and Computer Science. It has a great experience in planning and teaching European courses and has been both a partner and a promoter in projects within the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth programme and Sudoeste Interreg. Many of these projects are focused to language learning and contribute to the social and economic integration of minorities.

In addition to the above mentioned, the following institutions will act as ASSOCIATED PARTNERS and will have an active role in the project:

The "Anastasia Popescu" School (Bucharest - Romania) is a private institution certified by the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Sports. Beside the usual teaching work, the curriculum includes several activities to train and develop the learners� artistic skills. According to their inclinations, the students attend drama classes, instrumental or vocal music classes, visual arts classes, sports, dance sessions. Foreign languages (French, German and English) are one of the main focuses in this school. Their intense teaching/learning activity leads to the organization of performances, arts exhibitions and to participation in many competitions, both inside and outside the school.
The "Stefan Luchian" School of Arts (Botosani - Romania) is an institution specializing in arts and music. It is a kind of comprehensive school going from primary to high school. The school organizes several artistic activities such as recitals, concerts, individual or group exhibitions, school competitions for all the school subjects and contests to assess the learners� interpretative and creative skills. The students are also trained in voluntary activities organized by the local community.
The National College "Ion Neculce" (Bucharest - Romania) is a leading institution for the high level of education given to its students. The senior high school offers a variety of possibilities to carry out very diversified classes. This institution is Point of European documentation, Training Centre of the teachers, Centre of Documentation and Information, of the National Program carried out in partnership with the France embassy, authorized centre of evaluation ECDL, CISCO, ECL. The presence of a very competent and demanding teaching staff has meant excellent results of the students in the national and international school contests and a gold medal for the international contest of projects "Informatix."
The IES Pedra da Auga (Ponteareas - Spain) is a state school extremely active in developing projects to improve the language skills of their students. Currently they are performing three different projects: PROA Project, sponsored by the Spanish government, whose aim is to improve the educational results of students with learning difficulties; a workshop for improving the motivation to learn languages and the creativity of the students by using songs, and, the third one, which consists in improving multilinguistic skills by the use of songs. The last one, called, YOGOTE, is a long term programme involving a number of students who are learning several different languages. Its website is www.es.yogote.net and is becoming very popular as a new approach for teaching languages. They are members of UNESCO Associated Schools (ASPnet) networking, whose aim is to reinforce the humanistic, ethical, cultural and international dimensions of education.

The FENICE’s partners in the third project, "Find A Delightful Opportunity to learn Portuguese through Internet and songs” (FADO), are institutions from Portugal, Romania and Spain:

Every year, the University of Porto (UP) welcomes around 3000 international students, and it has over 20 years experience in international mobility programmes, having participated in Erasmus and ECTS pilot projects. Since then, UP has strengthened its international activities. In 2009, UP participated in 8 new EU projects. UP also coordinated the Alßan Programme for 8 years. It also participated in 46 European Projects (Framework Programmes, COST, Intelligent Energy-Europe Programmes, EUROCORES, EEA Grant, Comenius,Erasmus Thematic Network, Tempus IV, ALFA III, Edulink, EMECW, EQUAL, Leonardo da Vinci & IPs), coordinating 11 of these. The UP’s Faculty of Arts (FLUP) has long-standing experience in the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language or second language (PFL/SL), as well as in the training of teachers of PFL/SL. FLUP’s students of PFL/SL are generally short-term university students of other nationalities, but there are also regular students, particularly immigrants. Although not really among its target public, but rather among the students that may come to be taught by future teachers of PFL/SL, currently attending the Masters degree in Teaching Portuguese as a Flat FLUP, there will be many students whose mother tongue is not Portuguese and who will thus benefit from this project. Some Masters students, both during their teaching internships and in their MA theses/reports, may take songs as the basis for their work, in their teaching approaches, materials prepared, assignment records and games. The project can include music from other Lusophone countries, such as Cape Verde, not only because there are many immigrants, but also because they have a very rich musical tradition. The project will also include a component to compare European and Brazilian Portuguese, an activity towards which FLUP can contribute greatly given its privileged ties with these countries.

The University of Bucharest is one of the most important institutions for higher education in Romania and every year it involves in its activity more than 30,000 thousand students specializing in various fields of learning. As it has been directly involved in the reorganization of the Romanian teaching system, the University has taken measures and conceived several projects leading to the elaboration of new curricula, national laws and regulations. In 2000 the University has received a special award from the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports because of its great merits which make this institution one of the first 500 universities in the world. Being interested in national and international collaborations, considered a priority, the University has concluded many professional agreements (international masters and courses, doctorates) and has taken part in various European programmes, such as Erasmus, Lingua, Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci, Unica, Amos, Tempus, Tempra, etc). The Portuguese Section belongs to the Department of Romance Linguistics, Ibero-Romance Languages and Literatures, which in effect comprises four Sections (Romance Linguistics, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan). The Portuguese Section has three members and one Portuguese lecturer and faces nowadays an increasing number of students interested in studying the language and in obtaining a licence and master degree in Portuguese studies. Indeed it offers the students the opportunity of specializing in Portuguese literature and linguistics, as well as in Portuguese literary translation.

The Official Language School (EOI) of Malaga (Andalusia) is one of the Official Language Schools who form a wide network of non-university level schools dedicated to specialized teaching of modern languages. The EEOOII are centres managed by the Ministries of Education of the Autonomous Communities and are framed within the special regime centres. The certificates granted by the EEOOII are the only valid non-university official ones in relation to modern languages in Spain. Students have a total of four courses to achieve the basic level (classes A1 and A2) and six courses to overcome the Intermediate level (B1) and Advanced (B2.1 and B2.2). The EOI of Málaga offers the study of eleven languages with two kinds of education: presential classes and non-presential classes and welcomes every year more than 6000 students, being one of the biggest in the region of Andalusia. The Portuguese Department has actually three members: two teachers and one teaching assistant, they teach the five existing classes, corresponding to the three levels mentioned above.