The Project

In the framework of European Commission's Socrates Programme-Action Lingua 1 and co-ordinated by ECOSE, 12 organisations coming from 7 European Union countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Ellas, Italy, Portugal and Spain) and 12 regions of Europe, formed a partnership and start to realize an two-year initiative inspired by the impact of the European Year of Languages 2001. The project's title is “Glossomuseums” and it envisages familiarizing pupils and students aged mainly 9-14 years old with the cultural characteristics of the 11 official E.U. languages – especially the less spoken ones-, to motivate them in second language learning, to bring them in an initial contact with the languages of the 10 new EU member states and, overall, to encourage the discovery of the multi-collective European cultural identity.
The project's activities focus on the creation of a unit which will contain a variety of educational materials. The Glossomuseums will be installed in appropriate places and creative performances/presentations addressed to organized groups of pupils will be realized. The presentations will include an easy-to-follow introduction and creative group games.
At least 330 presentations in all countries of the partners are scheduled to take place.

First Year portrayal
During the first year of the project, the educational framework was invented and the structure of presentations begun to take its shape. Later on, the educational team elaborated the educational materials and their production took place. These materials were divided in two categories: the teaching materials and the learning ones. As a result a movable kind of museum had been created, known as “Glossomuseum”. The following steps were to train the animators-instructors, who would be the leaders of the presentations, to begin to apply the presentations on students, to modify and improve, to adopt any necessary lingual variations and to reproduce more parcels to be used by the partners. In the meantime, more supporting activities and actions of publicity took place, as well as contacts with various agencies that may provide facilities to perform future presentations.

Second Year portrayal
During the second year of the project, the presentations had become some kind of creative performances, which begun with an introduction to the European Union, its institutions, its policies, the Enlargement and the Constitution, and moved on to a similar introduction to the language families and to the 20 official European Union languages. Then, the animators-instructors presented a description of the morphology, the similarities and differences and the cultural extensions of the 11 before the enlargement of their number to 20. Finally, these introductions were followed by creative team activities to consolidate what had been said.

The teaching and learning materials accompanied the introductions. The teaching ones were 8 big banners having historical, geographic and lingual information on the EU printed on them. Those banners were placed vertically on cuprum standings, just like scenery, and helped the animators-instructors keep the structure of the introduction on the one hand, on the other the participants to understand its content and also to be able to follow the activities.

The learning materials mainly refer to 5 big floor games. The first game (the so-called “My first 10 words in 10 foreign languages”) motivated its players to learn at least 10 words in 11 EU languages. The second floor game (the so-called “Sea Bed” game) based on the question-answer style and focused on the former introduction. Two more games were floor crosswords; the first used the names of the member-states while the second their capital cities. The letters that were used were printed on plastic PVC tablets. The fifth floor game (the so-called “Steps in Intercultural Communication”) made its players familiar with various languages and European scholars and, at the same time, they developed their multicultural understanding.

Except for these materials, though, more products were created, like a poster depicted the “Charter of Fundamental Rights of the E.U.”, which was offered as a gift to each participant after each presentation; lingual activities' leaflets, which are to be used by teachers in school class; a working CD having multilingual voices recorded, which is used to acoustically familiarize students with foreign languages.

Products
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• Teaching Materials

The Chronicle of the European Union, Parts 1 and 2 -
Oilcloth banners, digital printing technique, 80 cm x 185 cm. Printed in 7 languages: Danish, German, Ellenic, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese

Polyglot Atlas of the European Union -
Oilcloth banner, digital printing technique, 80 cm x 185 cm
300 words in 11 EU languages

Map of the European Union -
Oilcloth banner, digital printing technique, 160 cm x 85 cm

The Languages of the European Union -
Oilcloth banner, digital printing technique, 80 cm x 185 cm

The Institutions of the European Union -
Oilcloth banners, digital printing technique, 80 cm x 185 cm. Printed in 7 languages: Danish, German, Ellenic, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese
After the Enlargement of 1/5/2004, the new numbers of the EU institutions are:
- European Commission: 25 commissioners
- Court of Justice: 25 judges
- European Parliament: 732 members
- Committee of the Regions: 344 members
- Economic and Social Committee: 344 members
- Court of Auditors: 25 members

The Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union -
Oilcloth banners, digital printing technique, 80 cm x 185 cm. Printed in 7 languages: Danish, German, Ellenic, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese

• Learning Materials

My first 10 words in 10 foreign languages -
Game

The Sea Bed -
Game

EU Countries and their Capital cities -
Crossword games

Steps in Intercultural Communication -
Activity

• Misc Materials

The Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union
70cm x 100cm poster


Glossolalia
activity sheet



Motivation in second language learning
activity sheet