TRAM - Transitions and Multilingualism · multilingualism and transitions. They were enabled to support multilingual children for successful transition from kindergarten to school

502428-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-COMENIUS-CMP

TRAM - Transitions and Multilingualism

Final Report Public Part

TRAM – Transitions and Multilingualism

502428-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-COMENIUS-CMP 2 / 17

Project information

Project acronym: TRAM

Project title: Transitions and Multilingualism

Project number: 502428-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-COMENIUS-CMP

Sub-programme or KA: Comenius Multilateral Project

Project website: www.tram-project.eu

Reporting period: From 01/10/09

To 30/09/2012

Report version: 1

Date of preparation: 30/10/2012

Beneficiary organisation: Elternverein Baden-Württemberg e.V.

Project coordinator: Almut Cobet-Rohde

Project coordinator organisation: Elternverein Baden-Württemberg e.V.

Project coordinator telephone number: +49 711 22 66 55 98

Project coordinator email address: [email protected]

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. © 2009 Copyright Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency. The document may be freely copied and distributed provided that no modifications are made, that the source is acknowledged and that this copyright notice is included.



Executive Summary

The project “TRAM – Transitions and Multilingualism” aims to support the educational opportunities of migrant pupils through the training of early childhood education teachers (ECE teachers). During the project lifetime the well composed consortium of eight members from five different European countries (DE, LV, NL, RO, SE) cooperated on the development of a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) course for ECE teachers. The consortium consisted of universities (active in the fields of teacher training, psychology and sociolinguistics), a research institution for early childhood education, a parents association and a school inspectorate as evaluator. In each participating country the partners worked together with at least one pilot institution as primary schools and/or kindergartens to include the practical perspective closely into the project activities.

On this basis it was possible for the partners to develop a training course curriculum for ECE teachers geared to the practical needs of ECE teachers facing the challenge to support children with multilingual background in transitions. During the project lifetime the partners implemented a European comparative report on basis of different country reports, they identified relevant practice examples and developed the comprehensive TRAM curriculum which is available in English, German, Dutch, and Latvian. The curriculum was tested in a transnational piloting with ECE teachers from the pilot institutions and three national supervised pilotings in 2011. During these national pilot runs the curriculum was evaluated intensively and the findings flowed into the final version of the curriculum. The printed as well as the electronic versions are available on the project website and are additionally distributed to teacher training institutions and other interested parties. The German and English language versions are published by Dr. Kovac publishing house.

Through the TRAM CPD courses (which already took place and will be implemented in future) ECE teachers developed their knowledge, skills and competences in regard to multilingualism and transitions. They were enabled to support multilingual children for successful transition from kindergarten to school fostering linguistic and personnel competences. Moreover the TRAM courses foster(ed) the attitude in teachers to perceive multilingualism as resource and to practice respectful dialogue in the classroom.

The project partners developed a comprehensive dissemination strategy to reach stakeholders on all levels. This strategy enabled the consortium, e.g. through national transfer workshops or contributions of partners at many conferences, to reach stakeholders and to initiate changes in the quality of teacher training in Europe.

All the activities within the TRAM project led to one aim: to improve pedagogical approaches and improve the educational opportunities of migrant pupils and other children with multilingual background. The highlight of the TRAM project was the final conference in Munich, Germany, where teacher training institutions were introduced to the TRAM curriculum and committed to implement the TRAM course into their training programmes by the signature of letters of intent.

If you like to get more information about the TRAM project, its aims, objectives, activities or partner institutions please visit the project website: www.tram-project.eu.



Table of Contents

1. PROJECT OBJECTIVES .................................................................................... 5

2. PROJECT APPROACH ...................................................................................... 6

3. PROJECT OUTCOMES & RESULTS ................................................................. 8

4. PARTNERSHIPS .............................................................................................. 11

5. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE .............................................................................. 13

6. CONTRIBUTION TO EU POLICIES ................................................................. 15



1. Project Objectives

Children with multilingual backgrounds have been identified as risk group within the national educational systems, especially in coping with transitions from kindergarten to primary school. Multilingualism during transition processes hitherto has inadequately been accounted for both: training of pedagogical professionals and on the level of concept and theory of education. Furthermore, projects to support transition, intercultural and migration competences within the field of education were lacking. Acceptance of language and cultural diversity and perception of the existing heterogeneity as a chance for competence acquisition presents a challenge to professionalism of teachers. Against this background the main objective of the project TRAM was to develop a teacher training, especially for early childhood education teachers (ECE teachers) to improve the educational opportunities of migrant pupils. The direct target group of the project – ECE teachers – was involved in the development of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) course through the close collaboration with the pilot schools/kindergarten. Before, they have been interviewed by the partners as well as some multilingual children and their parents within the collection of data for the preparation of the national country reports. The ECE teachers now benefit from the CPD course by improving their professionalism. After the completion of the course they are able

• to encourage monolingual children in their classroom to learn foreign languages,

• to support intercultural learning of pupils, • to include children, parents and grandparents with multilingual background in

education processes, • to foster linguistic and personal competences in pupils, • to foster respectful dialogue in classrooms, and • to help young persons to acquire the basic life-skills and competences

necessary for their personal development. Moreover the TRAM CPD course aims to promote bias sensitive pedagogy of teachers towards all children and to foster the attitude in teachers to perceive multilingualism as resource. In addition to these aims of the CPD course the TRAM project aimed to contribute to the following objectives of the Lifelong Learning Programme on three levels (European, national, local):

• to enhance the quality and the European dimension of teacher training, • to support improvements in pedagogical approaches, • to contribute to the development of quality lifelong learning and to promote

high performance, innovation and a European dimension in systems and practice in the field of teacher training, and

• to help improve the quality, attractiveness and accessibility of the opportunities for lifelong learning available within the member states.



2. Project Approach

To deliver the TRAM project on a high quality level the partners composed the project with five different work packages (WPs). Two WPs focused on the development and implementation of the TRAM Continuous Professional Development (CPD) course. The WPs “Management” and “Evaluation” ensured the high quality level of all project activities (e.g. by partnership agreements, internal reporting tools, regular steering group meetings). The WP “Evaluation” was split in an internal evaluation and a product quality evaluation and therefore guaranteed a close look at all activities and ensured a regular reflection of all project steps. The internal evaluation was delivered by the project coordinator EVBW (DE) and focused on the internal project processes, the work and satisfaction of the project partners and compliance to the work plan. The second, and major part of the evaluation, was delivered by partner General Country School Administration Sibiu (ISJ) from Romania. ISJ developed an evaluation project which covered the evaluation of the quality of the TRAM deliverables, their impact and their dissemination. ISJ participated in all SGMs and worked with expert, peer and stakeholder reviews to identify rooms for improvements of deliverable quality but also for impact assessment. ISJ was not only submitting a final evaluation report but was also a regular feedback giver during and in-between the SGMs.

To reach all set project aims the WPs “CPD Course Development” and “Follow-up Activities” focused on the realisation of the project products. Both worked on high quality products step by step. For the course development the partners were cooperating with pilot institutions as primary schools and kindergartens; they have compiled relevant practice examples and analysed state of the art literature. The quality of all development activities was ensured by a quality management system (set in the quality and project management handbook) e.g. by common templates and guidelines taking into account specific national characteristics. On this basis the structure for the curriculum has been developed by the partners and seven modules have been written. The curriculum includes the seven modules (see chapter 3 of this report).

During the development the partners collaborated very closely with the staff of the pilot institutions. Thus, a curriculum very close to everyday life/work and challenges has been developed. The draft was reviewed different times (e.g. throughout the international and national pilotings and the steering group meetings). The curriculum is available in English, Dutch, German and Latvian on the project website and from Dr. Kovac publishing company (DE and EN language version). To ensure the sustainability of the project results and outcomes the partners developed a follow-up strategy. This strategy includes inter alias a schedule for transnational TRAM Comenius courses in DE, NL, RO, SE or letters of intent



by institutions (e.g. teacher training institutions) who state(d) the commitment to include the TRAM outcomes into their regular training programmes.

In the WP “Dissemination strategy” the partners developed a strategy to reach a broad public on different levels (European, national, local) and sensitise it for the project topic. This was e.g. reached by the project flyer, the participation and presentation of the project during various national and international conferences or the publication of articles in relevant media. Everybody can visit the TRAM homepage (www.tram-project.eu), learn more about the project and download the curriculum. The main project activities were closed by the final conference in Munich, DE, in June 2012. More than 50 guests from European, national and local institutions learned about the outcomes of the TRAM project and discussed about current developments in the field of multilingualism and transitions.



3. Project Outcomes & Results

Since October 2009 the TRAM partners, experts in different fields of transition and multilingualism, have been exchanging about the state of the art, relevant practice examples and the national situation of multilingual children in transition to school in the five partner countries.

The TRAM partners e.g. compiled country reports informing about the past and present situation of linguistic minorities in DE, LV, NL, RO, SE. The reports have been written following a standard template: (1) they describe measures operated by the educational institutions referring to multilingual children, (2) they name the actual state of discussion and present research studies from each country, (3) they highlight basic and further teacher trainings in the field of interculturality, multilingualism, didactics of language teaching and managing educational transitions, (4) they mention administrative programmes of multilingualism, interculturality and transition, (5) they present useful practical information and (6) they show how European requirements are implemented.

Based on the reports' findings the partners have identified, discussed and elaborated ways, methods, tools and learning arrangements for the work with the target groups: children with multilingual background, their parents, grandparents and teachers. The result of the common work is the CPD course curriculum.

The curriculum includes the following modules:

1) Multilingualism and language acquisition

2) Handling of pluriligualism in kindergarten and primary schools

3) Transition to school

4) Diversity

5) Parent participation and educational partnership with parents

6) Pedagogic professionalism of dealing with plurilingual children

7) Transitions between pedagogic institutions

Some of these modules (e.g. module 1, 3 and 4) have been developed in interdisciplinary working groups, which allowed for different views on the topic (see e.g. Evaluation Report of TRAM project).

All modules have been tested in an international setting with participants from the pilot institutions of the partner countries. Subsequently, testing was implemented on national level in Germany, Netherlands and Sweden. The transnational and national testing offered the possibility to more than 30 early childhood education teachers (ECE

teachers) to acquire new and innovative skills to work in a high quality way with multilingual children. The pilotings/testings were followed and/or accompanied by extensive evaluation sessions to find out strength and weaknesses to revise the curriculum on that basis. The final version of the curriculum is now available in English, German (both published at Dr. Kovac publishing company), Dutch and Latvian. The Swedish as well as



the Romanian partner decided on basis of the feedback of their networks (e.g. during the National Transfer Workshops) that in their country no translated versions will be needed. In Sweden it is already common to work with English literature in ECE teacher initial and further vocational training. Additionally, University of Stockholm supports the idea to use English teaching materials to equip the ECE teachers in their course with better skills in foreign languages and thus improve their competitiveness on the (European) labor market. In Romania the German version will be used due to the fact that multilingualism is mainly an issue for the part of the country were many German speaking citizens live.

Overall the partners produced more than 30 deliverables with different dissemination levels and target audiences. DE, LV, RO and NL organised each a national transfer workshop with the participation of more than 150 stakeholders. The German workshop resulted in a close cooperation with another project of the German Youth

Institute for ECE teachers. Up to date 14 external organisations signed letters of intent and are already using the TRAM materials. The project results have been presented during numerous big national and international conferences (e.g. World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA 2011) in Beijing, China; Didacta, Stuttgart, Germany; 19th Reconceptualising Early Childhood Education Conference 2011, London, United Kingdom; Society, Integration, Education, Rezekne, Latvia; 15th European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Bergen, Norway; Sprachliche Bildung von Anfnag an – Strategien, Konzepte und Erfahrungen, Munich, Germany). More presentations have been made at smaller conferences and symposia at national levels. The project results have been presented to the interested public through numerous publications (e.g. in Kucharz (ed): Bildung ohne Brüche

(Jahrbuch Grundschulforschung, Bd.15): Seifert/Kieferle 2011: Mehrsprachigkeit im Übergang vom Elementar zum Primarbereich; Bethere/Machevica 2012: Professional Competences of Teachers Necessary for Cooperation with Parents of Children during the Transition Period Preschool to Primary School; in HJK 2011 (Jg 36): LePichon Vorstman: Een nieuwe taal leren).

The final conference of TRAM was a big event taking place in Munich, DE, in June 2012. More than 50 persons from different European countries met, learned more about the TRAM curriculum, the state of the art regarding multilingualism and transitions, exchanged and discussed. One highlight of the conference – besides the presentation of the TRAM curriculum – were the contributions of two of the leading researchers in the fields of multilingualism and transitions. Prof. Gunilla Dahlberg from Sweden (“Multilingual children come to school – meeting changes and making changes”) and Prof. Annick De



Houwer from Germany/Belgium (“Bridging home and school language”) gave insights in their latest scientific research and draw a bow to the newly developed TRAM materials. The second highlight of the conference was the signature ceremony for letters of intent, where different institutions from diverse European countries signed letters of intent and thus committed to use the TRAM materials within their work and/or for their staff/teacher training.

People interested in the manual of the CPD course can send a request to the consortium ([email protected]) or subscribe on the website (www.tram-project.eu) to receive a copy. Most TRAM results and outcomes are published for a broad public, so everybody can profit from TRAM. Especially activities as the national transfer workshops for stakeholders, the participation in conferences, the TRAM final conference, the newsletters and the developed CPD course (offered as international Comenius courses open to European teachers after the project lifetime, e.g. in RO, SE, DE, NL) were and are tools to involve the public and sensitise it for the concerns of TRAM.



4. Partnerships

The partners of the project TRAM are coming from different European regions as Central, Eastern, Northern and Western Europe.

Through the project TRAM it was possible to collect relevant data and practice examples about the situation of children with multilingual backgrounds. Results of the implemented national reports show that there is still (except for Germany) little information about how educational institutions cooperate in order to handle transitions. Here co-constructive models are needed. The most important findings of the TRAM reports are:

− Basic and further training of competent “transition managers” for children of linguistic minorities is an urgent duty.

− Exchange of expert knowledge as well as collecting more practical experience/evidence might be helpful.

On that basis it was possible for the eight partners from DE, LV, NL, RO and SE to develop a well-structured and well-founded CPD course curriculum to give common guidelines to ECE teachers in whole Europe. To reach high quality the consortium has been carefully composed to assure that all necessary skills exist in the partnership. The expertise of linguistic science was brought in by OTS - Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (NL), the parents' perspective by EVBW - Elternverein Baden-Württemberg e.V. (DE), the childrens’ perspective through the IFP - Institut für Frühpädagogik (DE) and the teachers’ perspective through the partners PHLB - Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg (DE), ULBS - Universitatea “Lucian Blaga” Sibiu (RO), LIEPU - Liepajas Universitate (LV), DoPa - Institionen fr didaktik och pedagogiskt arbeite, Stockholms (SE), all active in ECE teacher initial and further education and training. ISJ - General Country School Administration Sibiu (RO) was responsible for the evaluation of TRAM.

Due to this international composition and expertise the project contributed to the objectives of the European lifelong learning area by developing a common training curriculum for ECE teachers. By doing so the project partners stepped out of their national well-known learning arrangement scene and learned from other countries' experience. They developed a CPD course for at least five countries setting standards on European level in the field of ECE teacher training for teachers working with multilingual children in transitions. Only by realising the training course with transnational partners, the project was able to impact on several European countries. It has been part of the project design to develop a course curriculum that appeals and aims at ECE teachers working with multilingual children facing transition in many European countries. Therefore, courses will be implemented on national level (by partners and external stakeholders as Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe) and international level (e.g. Comenius courses in RO, SE in 2013 and in NL and DE in



2014). Additionally through the presentation of the project during conferences and the final TRAM conference in Munich in June 2012 the awareness of many stakeholders in Europe has been raised. Thanks to the planned Comenius training courses teachers from non-project countries will be reached who will function as multipliers in their countries.

Training dates can be found on the project website www.tram-project.eu.



5. Plans for the Future

Although the project lifetime ended with the end of September 2012 the partners are still very active to foster the implementation of the TRAM ideas, aims and products.

To train more ECE teachers and future ECE teachers (initial and further vocational training) the partners agreed on a schedule to host Comenius courses on basis of the TRAM curriculum to reach more staff and thus to give more children with multilingual background the chance to face successful transitions from kindergarten to school.

Additional, Elternverein Baden-Württemberg e.V. (EVBW) will apply for further Grundtvig Workshops (EVBW offered such a course in 2011) to include parents directly (e.g. on basis of module 5 of the TRAM curriculum) the process of European transnational learning and to equip them better to support the transitions of their multilingual children (or grant children).

Moreover all TRAM partners are planning to host internal and national TRAM courses/trainings to promote the newly developed methods and tools from the TRAM curriculum. Thus also the staff of other institutions – who already made contact with the partners to plan the implementation of TRAM courses - can profit from the TRAM project (see below).

Another way to promote and use the TRAM materials in future is the commitment of many institutions who signed letters of intent to use and promote the TRAM materials in their work. E.g. Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe (especially the institute of European Studies and Plurilingualism – European Teacher Course) developed a broad strategy to use the TRAM materials. They will use TRAM in the following fields of their work: 1) Information of teachers/lecturers (e.g. allocation of TRAM curriculum to teachers), 2) courses (inclusion of TRAM materials in diverse study modules e.g. “M2B Erarbeitung bilingualer Unterrichtsmaterialien), 3) Cooperation (in the cooperation seminar “CLIL Waldklassenzimmer” the TRAM findings/materials will be included in the practical cooperation work between the university and field institutions; TRAM materials will also be used in the conceptualization of the bilingual religious education in cooperation with the institute for religious pedagogy), 4) Further education of teachers (TRAM materials are included in the further education programme of teachers in bilingual religious education); 5) Promotion campaigns (e.g. at the education conference “Suchet der Schule Bestes” in Karlsruhe in 2012 the TRAM project was presented); 6) Internationalisation (guest lecturer are informed about the TRAM project).

The TRAM partners are additionally planning the following activities in the future:

- Implementation of European TRAM Comenius courses in Romania, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany.

- Inclusion of the TRAM curriculum in the regular ECE teacher education (initial and further) education programme e.g. in the study programme “Frühkindliche Bildung und Erziehung” of the Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg.

- Further publications in relevant media.



- Further dissemination of the TRAM project products in lectures, speeches and conferences.

- Networking activities as convincing external institutions to use the TRAM materials for their teaching and for their staff development and thus sign the TRAM letter of intent (e.g. use of the TRAM curriculum at the University of Applied Sciences – Early Childhood Education – in Munich, DE, Marnix Academie in NL).

- Implementation of national CPD courses (e.g. in NL in October, November 2012 and April 2013).

- Implementation of a facebook page for ECE teachers by OTS.

- Participate in and host events for parents and teachers to inform them about the TRAM project and the importance of successful transitions.



6. Contribution to EU policies

The TRAM project contributed to different EU policies in many ways. In this section we like to come back to the objectives of TRAM listed in chapter 1 of this report. All of these objectives contribute to EU policies in a special way. The European dimension was given in all phases and parts of the project because the partners have collected (e.g. relevant practice examples) and brought together their national findings to compare, analyse and improve them in a European setting.

− The project TRAM contributed to the inclusion of classroom reality into teacher training. TRAM developed new and innovative concepts for teachers to support multilingual children in transition phases. The partnership believes that the quality of teacher training was enhanced through the TRAM project and that the cooperation of five European countries brought in a European dimension in so far very nationally orientated teacher training. Here are some examples for the new and innovative concepts of the TRAM project:

− Shared/common trainings of kindergarten and school staff,

− Principle of handing over instead of “delivery”,

− Continuity of rituals in kindergarten and schools: e.g. morning greeting in different languages.

− TRAM aimed to support the acquisition of several languages at an early stage (pre-primary and primary school level). It focused on multilingual children supporting them in transition phases so that their skills in several languages are maintained and even reinforced through support of experienced teachers. Moreover it intended to make monolingual children learn from their multilingual classmates.

− TRAM developed new pedagogical approaches (e.g. to equip ECE teachers with skills to develop customised transition programmes) regarding the support of multilingual children by the implementation of the TRAM CPD course curriculum. Herein the question of continuity as well as respectful dialogue played an important role.

− Research indicated that successful transitions influence pupils' motivation to learn. The concept of TRAM dealt with the successful coping of multilingual children in transitions. The teachers reached by TRAM now promote resilience in these children – a capacity needed to overcome the adversities of life. Thus they are able to support the acquisition of other life-skills. In addition teachers improved their skills in intercultural education to contribute to social inclusion.

− TRAM promoted awareness for linguistic and cultural diversity with early child-hood education teachers as well as children in early childhood settings. The TRAM partners assumed that cultural and linguistic sensitivity is the key to successful transitions of multilingual children from kindergarten to school. Therefore the CPD course curriculum addressed this issue clearly.

− Before the implementation of TRAM teacher training in the partner countries disregarded work reality. In all partner countries there were significant numbers of multilingual pupils present in the classroom. However, training and professional development of teachers on how to deal with diversity of children



in vulnerable situations remained little. This was the starting point for TRAM: 1. it intended to improve the quality of teacher training in the European Union by the development of a new, innovative and European level CPD course and 2. it provided new training opportunities for teachers by the implementation of the CPD courses during and after the project lifetime.

Last but not least TRAM was in line with the work programme 2010 of the European Union contributing to the objective to improve foreign language learning in order to benefit from European diversity. TRAM supported early multilingual learning.

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TRAM - Transitions and Multilingualism · multilingualism and transitions. They were enabled to support multilingual children for successful transition from kindergarten to school