| Multilingual classrooms: in today’s increasingly diverse educational landscape, children often do not share a common language of instruction or home language(s) in the classroom. This course empowers teachers to develop inclusive pedagogical strategies that recognize and leverage linguistic diversity as a resource, rather than a barrier. Central to the course is the concept of social agency—the idea that all learners, regardless of their linguistic background, have the right and capacity to actively participate in their learning journey. Teachers will explore how to foster this agency by creating environments where students’ languages are acknowledged, valued, and used as tools for learning. Participants will reflect on the role of language mediation—the process of facilitating understanding across languages and cultures—in promoting equity and inclusion. Through this lens, the course highlights the importance of teachers acting as mediators who bridge linguistic gaps and support meaningful communication. Participants will be guided in selecting and applying effective strategies, ensuring that all children and pupils feel linguistically safe and supported. The course introduces a range of plurilingual practices that form a multilingual teaching toolkit, including: -Visual strategies to make all classroom languages visible and accessible -Strategic use of different pedagogical strategies to support comprehension and expression -Comparative language activities to deepen metalinguistic awareness The course also provides opportunities for participants to share experiences and insights with highly qualified trainers, fostering a collaborative and reflective learning community. |
Target audience
Teachers and school staff at pre-primary- primary-lower secondary school
Tuition
26 hours
Objectives
The main objectives of this training course are:
- knowledge about theoretical frameworks about plurilingualism (CARAP; Companion Volume 2020, etc.)
- identify benefits and challenges of multilingualism for children/pupils, their families and educators/teachers
- raise multilingual and intercultural awareness
- select and use appropriate plurilingual pedagogical strategies and materials (e.g. approches pluriels, translanguaging, etc.)
- design multilingual activities
Methodology
Participants will be engaged in individual, pair, team and plenum activities in different lamguages in order to put the participants in the students’shoes. Through group discussions and multimodal tasks participants will be able to prepare their own action plan to use in their groups/classrooms. Formative and final feedback will be provided during and at the end of the sessions.
Content
Module 1: Introduction to the course: terminology, definitions and discussions about the concepts
Module 2: Understanding children’s agency and co-construction of knowledge by concrete intentional classroom teaching acts (pedagogical strategies)
Module 3: Visit to schools where Languages are used to teach through the curriculum (such as Spanish, Italian, French, Turkish) a- feedback/reflection
Module 4: Selecting appropriate resources for implementing and integrating mediation activities and strategies for teaching multilingually
Module 5: Designing an action plan for own class/school (positive interpersonal relations between pupils, enhancing pupils’ sense of belonging, group solidarity)
Self-assessment and feedback.
The program includes visits to specialised centers for multilingualism and integration:
- ZMI-Zentrum für Mehrsprachigkeit und Integration (Kooperation zwischen Bezirksregierung, Stadt Köln, Universität zu Köln – ZMI Centre for Multilingualism and Integration (cooperation between the district government, the City of Cologne, and the University of Cologne)- https://www.zmi-koeln.de/
- Kommunales Integrationszentrum – Municipal Integration Centre
- Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum and Museumsdienst collaborazion
The course will also include class obervation in a multilingual school
Participants
Minimum number: 15 – Max number: 20
Languages
English, Languages of the participants (Italian, Deutsch, etc.)
Dates
29 JUNE – 3 JULY 2026
Location: Vincenz Statz Grundschule – Lindenbornstr. 15 – 19 – COLOGNE / KÖLN – GERMANY –
Provider OID: E10012747 for the Beneficiary Module
Cost
450 € course fees
The cost includes the tuition fees and course materials. Acoomodation, meals and journey are not ncluded
Info and registration
Open for pre-registration: https://forms.gle/AK5qH8VZGrJi4vs6A
For more info write to: infosmartedu4all@gmail.com
Trainers:
Emanuela Atz has been a second language teacher (Italian L2, ESL and DAZ) and teacher trainer since 1992. Her fields of interest are second language acquisition, plurilingual approaches and heritage languages. She is currently working at the Language Centres in South Tyrol (Italy) supporting the inclusion of children and kids with international backgrounds in kindergartens and schools. She has participated and coordinated integrated language teaching working groups (Comenius, eTwinning, ESPA, Erasmus+ ), multilingual and intercultural education projects (European Label 2006, 2018 – best practice eTwinning 2005), national and European projects. She has supported curriculum development, offered CLIL consultancy and produced didactic material.
Rosella Benati has been working as a specialist advisor at the Migration Office of the Cologne District Government since 2002 and has been managing director of the ZMI – Centre for Multilingualism and Integration since 2010. Prior to this, she worked for several years as a teacher at primary and secondary schools in Düsseldorf and Cologne, specialising in Italian as a heritage language and German as a second language. In this context, she gained extensive experience in coordinated and contrastive learning and was able to convince numerous primary schools to develop a multilingual school profile. She continues to support many of these schools in their further development.
Rosella Benati ist seit 2002 als Fachberaterin in der Arbeitsstelle Migration der Bezirksregierung Köln tätig und seit 2010 Geschäftsführerin des ZMI – Zentrums für Mehrsprachigkeit und Integration. Zuvor arbeitete sie mehrere Jahre als Lehrerin an Grund- und Hauptschulen in Düsseldorf und nfoKöln, insbesondere im Herkunftssprachlichen Unterricht Italienisch sowie im Bereich Deutsch als Zweitsprache. In diesem Zusammenhang sammelte sie umfangreiche Erfahrungen im koordinierten und kontrastiven Lernen und konnte zahlreiche Grundschulen dafür gewinnen, ein mehrsprachiges Schulprofil zu entwickeln. Viele dieser Schulen begleitet sie bis heute in ihrer weiteren Entwicklung. Zu ihren Aufgaben gehören die Planung, Organisation, Durchführung und Evaluation von Fort- und Weiterbildungsmaßnahmen für Lehrkräfte sowie die Beratung von Eltern.
Im Rahmen ihrer Arbeit im ZMI initiiert und fördert sie Projekte und Initiativen zu den Themen Mehrsprachigkeit und Integration – in der frühkindlichen Bildung, in der schulischen und außerschulischen Bildungsarbeit, in der Elternbildung, in der Erwachsenenbildung sowie in der Lehrer*innenausbildung und Forschung.
