Intro to LILAC

The project was conceived in the context of a Grundtvig 2 Learning Partnership, which involved disadvantaged learners, including refugees and migrants. Active Citizenship seemed a good topic to develop, but the partners agreed that teaching the subject under this title wasn’t going to attract crowds of learners, least of all the disadvantaged learners we were interested in. So we reflected on the concept of ‘Active Citizenship’ and what it could mean for newcomers to our countries – refugees and migrants – and came to the conclusion that many were struggling simply to access basic services, such as work, education, health, social activities, lifelong learning, out of a lack of familiarity with the ‘systems’ and institutions at work in our countries, coupled with language difficulties. Thus, under the title of ‘Learning for Integration, Learning for Active Citizenship’ our project undertook to develop teaching and learning materials for use with refugees and migrants. The materials can be used by language teachers and aim to provide learners with the basic information to understand life in their new country in the four areas identified. Whilst a lot of language teaching already uses practical, everyday life examples, we found that there were still gaps in explaining the most fundamental aspects. By working together as LILAC partners we gained a better understanding of those gaps, and exchanged good ideas on how to teach or present information to learners more effectively.

 We also agreed some key principles of teaching which underpins our approach:

·          Learner-focus

·          Participative teaching styles and learning methodologies: for learners to search for information, wherever possible; and making the learning real by bringing in external speakers to interact with learners

·          Flexibility of learning

·          Attractiveness of materials: use IT and interactive methods, with pictures

·          Localised information

·          Empowerment of learners, valuing their own experience

·          Valuing difference: especially important when dealing with refugees and migrants who are associated with a low status in host country to boost their confidence and pride in who they are, rather than what they aren’t

·          Exploring and deepening our understanding of what citizenship means across Europe, especially in the new democracies, e.g. Latvia and Romania, both countries from the East participating in LILAC