The Languages Company supports and initiates a number of projects relating to languages pedagogy and policy. Recently we have been developing work on CLIL and Pupil Talk. We are also a founder partner in Speak to the Future , the Campaign for Languages.
We have also coordinated a number of International Projects, and participated in others.
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Languages in Urban Communities - Integration and Diversity for Europe
www.urbanlanguages.eu
 LUCIDE is a network which is developing ideas about how to manage multilingual citizen communities. We are building up a picture of how communication occurs in multilingual settings across the EU and beyond. We aim to help institutions (councils, schools, hospitals) and local and national economies make better productive use of diversity as an economic resource and to strengthen social cohesion by fostering better communication and mutual understanding. We also want to understand better how the cultural richness of these new cities can strengthen the “diverse unity “of the 21st century.
In concrete terms LUCIDE will be undertaking research, running seminars and workshops and developing guidelines for multilingual cities relating to –
- Education - language learning and language support
- The public sphere - how the city supports democratic engagement
- Economic life – the benefits of multilingualism and the requirements
- The private sphere – how people behave and interrelate and celebrate
- The urban space – the appearance and sounds of the city
In 2014 a major publication and international conference at LSE are planned.
The LUCIDE partnership includes 16 partners (14 from Europe and 2 Third Country partners) already active in the domain of multilingualism within urban contexts, at both University and City level, and in a range of city types. It includes cities which have long traditions of multilingualism as well as those for whom this is relatively new.
The LUCIDE network is funded by the European Commission Lifelong Learning Prograrmme from December 2011 to November 2014. |
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Language Rich Europe (LRE) |
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 Language Rich Europe is a networking project which brings together 1200 policy makers and practitioners from 24 countries and regions in Europe to discuss and develop better policies and practices for multilingualism. Network members are drawn from the fields of education, business, public services and the media.
The project is co-ordinated by the British Council - The Languages Company is the lead partner for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Dr Lid King is also a member of the project's Steering Group.
It seeks to record countries' progress in supporting multilingualism and to engage leaders in government, educational institutions, public services, business and the media to help develop a more strategic approach to languages across society.
It attempts to measure how these countries perform against European standards in the following areas:
- Education (pre-primary, primary, secondary, adult)
- Public services and public spaces
- Business
- Media
- National language diversity documents/databases
Languages covered include:
- National languages
- Foreign languages
- Regional and minority languages
- Immigrant languages
The project published its final publication in December 2012, and held a final partners conference in March 2013 at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, at which it presented its final recommendations for European policymakers.
Information – including country by country profiles – is available via the project website http://www.language-rich.eu/nc/home/welcome.html
The findings, publications and final recommendations from the project are free to download from http://www.language-rich.eu/materials-media.html
Future activity, building on this project, includes events and conferences, calls for papers, case studies, and more. Keep up-to-date via the project's blog http://languagerichblog.eu/about/ or contact us at The Languages Company for more information. |
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Languages in Europe - Theory Policy and Practice |
 This one year project in collaboration with the London School of Economics ran from November 2009 until October 2010.
The LETPP project discussed the conditions which favour policies on Multilingualism and the obstacles to their success, looking in particular at two issues –
Languages and Social Cohesion
Languages and Intercultural Communication/Employability.
The project involved
Analysis and Proposals from the LETPP Consultation and Review
For more information and to access the Outcomes & Conclusion Report, please go to www.letpp.eu
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 Lingu@net World Wide was a two year project involving over 20 partners, funded by the European Commission. It further developed the successful and award winning Lingu@net Europa resource centre to include new resources and new access languages. Lingu@net EU was developed over the last 12 years with support from the EU Commission Socrates programme. In 2007 it was awarded the MERLOT prize for being ‘exemplary on-line learning material for all disciplines’ (www.merlot.org).
By the end of 2011 Lingu@net WW included every official European Union language as well as Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese and Japanese. The website gives access to some 5,000 good quality online language teaching and learning resources and provides online support and advice for language learners in 32 languages.
The new site was launched on May 24 2011 in Madrid. Please visit www.linguanet-worldwide.org to explore and comment on the site.
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 The project developed an innovative European Language Portfolio (ELP) for adults aiming to improve their employability by demonstrating their foreign language competencies in a professional context. The ELP developed in this project responds to the needs of language learners and employers, as well as language and employment service providers. It is not tied to a specific vocational sector but can be used for language learning in any professional context. The Prof-ELP project consortium consisted of six partners from five EU countries (Spain, Greece, Poland, Sweden and the UK) and was led by the Employment Service of Navarra, Spain. Supported by the EU Commission Lifelong Learning Programme (Leonardo da Vinci), the project ran from November 2008 until October 2010.
The consortium researched and evaluated good practice self-access language learning tools and processes focusing on models for business needs. Research was undertaken to determine how the project could build on the success of existing Adult ELPs. Please see the CoE website for a link to all recognised ELPs. The project has published the Professional ELP as hard copy but it also provides access via interactive electronic and digital platforms, please see the link below. To access the online portfolio, please click hereAnd click on the links below if you wish to view the user manuals. |
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