Effective teaching and learning for minority children in preschools in Slovakia and Estonia
From 2004-2006, Sardes was partner in the project 'Effective Teaching and Learning for Minority Children in Preschool', funded through the EU Socrates and Comenius Initiative. The international consortium was lead by the International Step by Step Association (ISSA) and carried out together with Step by Step organizations in Estonia and Slovakia and two European partners, COSPE (Co-operation for the Development of Emerging Countries, an NGO located in Italy) and Sardes Educational Services.
Project aims were to develop a replicable teacher training module and learning materials appropriate to the needs of early learners from minority language communities, through greater inclusion of their mother tongue and home culture in the classroom, combined with effective learning of the 'state language' as a second language. Target groups were pre-school children from 5 to 7 years old, who are non-native language speakers, parents, and pre-school educators who have non-native speaking children in their classrooms.
The project ended in December 2006 and the following materials were developed and published:
- Speaking for Diversity: Promoting Multilingualism in Early Childhood Education, A Teachers' Guide for Effective Teaching and Learning for Minority Language Children Program
- a Compendium of Learning Materials
- and a Training Module.
Please contact Eva Izsak at eizsak@issa.hu if you would like access to the English materials.
The project in Estonia was entered into a competition: Foreign Lanaguage Learning Project of the Year. The materials received a prize and letter of appreciation, signed by Jan Figel, EU Education Commisioner, from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science and European Commission.
See http://www.archimedes.ee (site is currently available in Estonian only).
The project was also presented by Eva Koncokova (Slovakia) and Eva Izsak (ISSA) at a conference organized by another Comenius project in Berlin, Germany in January 2007.
Sardes task was to evaluate the materials, the training module and the project as a whole.
Click here to view the evaluation report.
More information: Jeroen Aarssen
This site has been modified on 13-03-2012