2015

Dissemination event, Innsbruck, Austria, 23-24 April 2015

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2014

Expert meeting, Graz, Austria, 1-2 September 2014

 
The most important issue of the last team meeting was the finalisation of the core product of PluriMobil: the Lesson Plans for accompanying mobility during all its phases (before-during-after). The lesson plans for students in upper secondary vocational and general education were partly based on ideas suggested by the participants in the Central Workshop in February 2014 and further developed by the team.

Our practice examples and also a recent training and consultancy event co-organised with the FREPA-team in a school in Hürth near Cologne (Germany) showed that the PluriMobil Lesson Plans are a valuable input for the teacher's own developments regarding mobility. Part of the PluriMobil upper secondary Lesson Plans are currently tested in Switzerland.

The other products the team worked on during the meeting were the Handbook, the Quick-Start Guide, the Flyer and the Website. A main point of discussion was, as usual, the optimisation of our materials and supports in order to make them as attractive, inspiring and helpful as possible for teachers: How to integrate the fairly complex tools of the COE and, for instance, insights about plurilingual communication into our lesson plans?

All materials will be downloadable from our newly layouted website in 2015, since our project ends in 2014. The Quick-Start Guide and the Flyer will also be available as print versions.

Workshop, Graz, Austria, 5-7 February 2014

The Central Workshop took place at Graz and reunited 20 participants representing 19 European countries. The exchange took place in a very friendly and highly cooperative ambiance.
The main objectives of the workshop were
•    the presentation of PluriMobil and a targeted use of COE-Tools such as the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters, the European Language Portfolio and FREPA (Framework of reference for pluralistic approaches) to prepare, accompany and follow up on the learning process to participants: Concept and products developed for primary, lower secondary and teacher training, good practice examples
•    enhancing a deeper understanding of the concept of interculturality in the context of mobility
•    the development of new lesson plans for upper secondary education (general and vocational)
•    getting feedback on implementation tools (the website, the Quick-Start guide, and implementation concepts)
•    the creation of networks
Anna Schröder-Sura, coordinator of the project "FREPA national networks", presented the Framework of reference for pluralistic approaches (FREPA), one of the main COE tools used for setting clear goals for plurilingual and intercultural learning in mobility in PluriMobil lesson plans. Michael Hammersley, member of the LINCQ-team (Languages in corporate quality), introduced the project and possible links to PluriMobil were discussed. The participants presented interesting related issues such as a mobility experience at a secondary school in Malta based on PluriMobil, a training course for German in vocational contexts (Goethe institut), LINGUASWAP, a website for setting up virtual exchanges between secondary students speaking different languages, new pathways for combining vocational and general education in Finland or a teacher training module for mobility at the Pädagogische Hochschule Tirol in Austria.

The workshop programme is available online - please click here.

Regional Workshop, St. Gallen, Switzerland, 22-23 August 2013

The Regional Workshop (23-24 August 2013) was hosted by the Pädagogische Hochschule St. Gallen, Switzerland. The main objectives were, on the one hand, the dissemination of PluriMobil tools and, in a more general way, of the work of the ECML in Switzerland, and, on the other hand, common work on implementation tools and additional ideas for the adaptation of PluriMobil to the level of upper secondary school. The exchange took place in a very friendly and highly cooperative ambiance.

The workshop reunited 45 participants (at different moments of the workshop), including the executive director of the ECML, Waldemar Martyniuk, eight international experts who already participated in the network meeting in autumn 2012, Ursula Newby, representing the ECML Verein, representatives of the Swiss authorities (the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education, the Swiss Centre for Continuing Education of Upper Secondary Teachers and the National Competence Centre for Mobility and Exchange), Swiss teacher trainers from all parts of Switzerland (representing the National Mobility Group of Universities of teacher training in Switzerland), teachers of upper secondary, members of the hosting institution, and, of course, the PluriMobil team members and associate partners. Additionally, a public conference, where good practice examples were presented by the international experts, attracted a wider interested Swiss audience (please find the conference report in German here) The two morning sessions were dedicated to work on implementation, in cooperation with the ECML PIU project (represented by two team members of PIU) and the collection of new ideas for the creation of lesson plans adapted to college and vocational schools. In the afternoon sessions, we profited from an extensive exchange with Swiss teacher trainers (23 August) and college teachers (24 August). The discussions showed the need for a specific pedagogical framework for the accompaniment of mobility such as prepared by PluriMobil and its complementarity to the activities already implemented in the different institutions. Picture gallery: //phsg.smugmug.com/Category/PluriMobil-21-August-2013/31372888_wP7RHR#!i=2716497955&k=z8KFLVK

Expert meeting, 7-8 March 2013

The team met on 7-8 March 2013 in Graz to pursue the work started together in 2012. Since the network meeting in September 2012, the existing PluriMobil lesson plans (materials) for student teachers and primary/lower secondary pupils, as well as large parts of the publication, have been revised according to the feedback of the participants. During the meeting, final questions were elucidated. The structure of the lesson plans is now more user-friendly and the publication structured more clearly. In specific, the work of the European Language Portfolio and portfolio work in general – one of the backbones of our project – is now described with greater precision; the idea of a double scenario is visualized and will be comprehensible at a glance. With the assistance of the ECML, the website will be restructured: the products of the actual project phase will be put in the foreground, whereas the draft results of the 2010-11 phase will still be accessible in the background.

One of several measures of implementation on the grounds of now existing experience with PluriMobil in practice has been intensively discussed: a quick start guide, working with virtual tools such as PREZI or Creative Commons. With regard to implementation we had the chance to engage in an intensive exchange with Ulrike Haslinger, the Coordinator of the PIU-Projekt (ECML publications for plurilingual and intercultural education in use), who attended the meeting on the second day. PluriMobil is one of the four projects chosen by PIU for the wider dissemination of projects in favour of plurilingual and intercultural education.  Further intensive collaboration is planned. 

Finally, the Regional Workshop to be held at the Pädagogische Hochschule St.Gallen (22-24 August 2013) was planned in detail. Its objectives are to disseminate PluriMobil and the work of the ECML in Switzerland, to get responsibles for mobility in Swiss teacher training in institutions involved in the implementation of PluriMobil, and to obtain feedback on the adapted lesson plans by upper secondary teachers.

On the evening before the expert meeting (6 March, 17.30-19.30) the team was given the opportunity to present the PluriMobil Project to a wider Austrian audience within the context-series of the EFSZ-Verein. The concept of PluriMobil, the scenarios and lesson plans for the different target groups as well as examples of practice in Poland (primary) and Switzerland (lower secondary and teacher training) were presented. Further dissemination events in Austria are expected to result from the opportunity of this presentation.

The network-meeting with 10 participants of the former central workshop took place this September at the ECML in Graz. During the meeting, the participants discussed the possibilities of implementing PluriMobil in the accompaniment of diverse types of mobility (real and virtual) at the level of primary and lower secondary school as well as in teacher training. Good practice examples were presented by several participants. In specific, possiblities of using the European Language Portfolio (and portfolios in general) in the accompaniment of mobility were discussed. A part of the lesson plans (former « materials ») were revised during the meeting. We also discussed potential implementation challenges related to the numerous stakeholders implied in mobility; this discussion is the starting point of the conception of an implementation concept, including a “quick start”-information leaflet on behalf of the teachers and teacher trainers planning a mobility project.

Expert meeting, 3-5 April 2012

After a few months of online contact, the team met on 3-5 April in Graz to launch the project. During the first meeting the team reviewed the annual plan as well as the existing PluriMobil publication, worksheets and website; the network meeting in autumn 2012 was planned in detail. 

We agreed that our main aim for this year will be the finalization of the 2010-11 PluriMobil Project. Our task will be to revise the draft publication and worksheets for primary and lower secondary schools as well as for teacher training with regard to coherence, comprehensibility and user friendliness. In order to review the existing double scenarios, the team prepared a questionnaire addressed to teachers and teacher trainers (mainly the former participants of the central workshop in 2011) who are already familiar with the worksheets as they  implement them in their mobility programmes. It aims at collecting examples of good practice as well as suggestions for improvement. The outcomes of the questionnaire will be discussed during the network meeting in autumn 2012 and integrated into the finalization of the publication. Our next step will be elaborating the existing materials to cater for the needs of secondary and vocational secondary education. We also had a chance to meet the Language Associations and Collaborative Support (LACS)  team who held their expert meeting at the same time at the ECML. LACS is a project that mediates between ECML projects and language teacher associations and other networks at regional and national levels to those who can benefit: teachers, learners, policy makers and teacher trainers. This meeting allowed us to forge initial contact and discuss areas of prospective cooperation between the two projects. Further intensive collaboration is also planned with two other mediation projects, namely ECML publications for plurilingual and intercultural education in use (PIU) and Plurilingual and intercultural competences: descriptors and teaching materials (CARAP and NCP). PluriMobil 2012-2014 download the description