Erasmus+ KA2 project How to learn a language? (H2L2) – Blog 8 | April 2024
EPALE Österreich
The organisation of the learning process, which includes learning strategies, learning times and places, is an important prerequisite for basic education and poses challenges for educationally disadvantaged learners. Many learners only have the time and opportunity to concentrate on learning within the language course. But there are so many ways in which they can learn languages outside the classroom in their everyday life. In the context of the Erasmus+ KA2 partnership project How to learn a language, we, as Orient Express, worked with learners on utilizing written and spoken language in the everyday environment as learning opportunities. We aimed to help learners develop their awareness of text in daily life and to help them develop strategies for meaning making. Also the were invited to bring their materials to the classroom.
How to Learn a Language? The How to learn a language (H2L2) project offers experienced adult education institutions the opportunity to explore in depth how learner-centred approaches can be implemented in pilot courses. All institutions in the consortium work with people who face multiple discrimination due to educational disadvantage, origin, mother tongue, (lack of) residence permit, religion and learning difficulties. In ten-week courses, learners and teachers develop and evaluate together in a co-creative process the following strategies: memory strategies, self-narration as a basis for language acquisition, Language is Everywhere (where learners bring authentic reading and listening texts from their everyday lives to class), portfolio strategies (which can also be used by learners in basic education) and digital learning strategies (such as the use of Google Lense and other helpful tools), etc.
Collecting and acquiring language outside the classroom In the first unit of the pilot course on this topic, we tried to discuss together what it means to collect or acquire language outside the classroom and how each learner could do this for themselves. The most obvious idea was to start by looking at their immediate environment - which for most of them was their own home - and labeling objects around them in their second language. The learners were asked to use their mobile phones to take photos of five objects of their choice in the rooms they had been assigned in their homes (e.g. living room, bedroom, kitchen, etc.) and then send the photos to the shared WhatsApp group. Through this task, the learners learned that they are able to learn for themselves and also decide what, when and where they want to learn. We used the photos to make a memory game where the learners wrote the cards with the photos and the corresponding names of the objects on the computer. Once again, digital skills were practised. Language skills were continuously practised and consolidated by telling stories about the objects photographed. In subsequent classes, the participants kept bringing in something where they encountered language: pasta packets with cooking instructions, forms for applying for minimum income, emails or WhatsApp messages from their children's school. Even after the end of the pilot course, the learners brought authentic reading and listening texts from their everyday lives to the course on their own initiative, which were then worked with intensively in class.
Partnership H2L2 is a strategic partnership in the framework of Erasmus+ KA2 (Adult Education) involving the following organisations: Second Chance School of Mytilene (Greece), Orient Express: Counselling Educational and Cultural Initiative for Women (Austria), C.P.I.A. Sede di Ancona and Universita Degli Studi Di Macerata (Italy), TopTaal NT2 Experts, Kaatje Dalderop and ITTA UvA (Netherlands).