Feeling Home

The risk of social exclusion among the migrant population is worryingly higher than among nationals. Language skills are determinant for the successful integration process. 2019 almost half of the 272 million people worldwide not living in their country of birth were women and Eurostat ‘19 stated that migrant women represented more than 50% of the newcomers population in Europe (The proportion has even increased after March ’20). Germany’s integration program is known as one of the best in the world however 2019 only 22% of women with children under the age of 4 attended the courses and just 12% of them had daily contact to Germans. The need for new initiatives and learning paths tailored to women’s needs is undeniable. Feeling Home offers a new language learning path for women that cannot attend regular courses. It motivates, empowers and gives women a voice recognizing their values and building their sense of belonging to the host society.

This project primarily aims to achieve a reduction in the risk of social exclusion of migrant women in our society; It creates a new informal language learning program that is piloted by 35 teachers in 5 European countries giving a total of 162 migrant women the chance to improve their linguistic skills while simultaneously enhancing their integration process. The course is organized as informal encounter activities in the city where participants are encouraged to listen, read, write and talk in the local language about different topics independently of their language level. Further, Feeling Home aims to improve the competences of educators for the delivery of informal training including digital skills. 35 trainers create pilots in R1 with more flexible learning paths in line with women’s needs, improve their teaching competences & collaborate at the European level with peers. R2 analyses, describes & maps in a learning space informal teaching strategies & best practices so teachers can easily use them in programs with vulnerable groups. The project offers digital ready solutions for the programs and brings the European frameworks for digital competences closer to the language trainers.

As stated above Feeling Home followed two main objectives: **1-To increase language learning opportunities for migrant women by creating a new informal pedagogical approach to thereby enhance their integration possibilities in the host countries **2-To support overwhelmed language trainers working with migrants and vulnerable groups with new methodologies, best practice examples and a repository for free materials and digital tools In order to successfully reach these goals this initiative implemented several actions at the project management level and created two main outcomes that included different steps. The project activities can be divided in two main groups: ACTIVITIES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT RESULTS: R1 represents THE INFORMAL LANGUAGE LEARNING ACTIVITY FOR MIGRANT INCLUDING CURRICULUM AND MATERIAL: The activities carried out in this result were led by DE and all partners contributed to their development and implementation. The preliminary need analysis for these activities: Language skills are crucial in the integration process. Exploratory studies carried out by this partnership and partners’ daily working experiences outlined that despite the existing language providing opportunities for migrants and refugees, women remain mostly excluded of them. The EU Website of Integration remarks in numerous articles the high isolation’s rate migrant women suffer in their host communities (e.g. 11/20). A space for self- development is mostly inexistent in many women’s role models. This fact determines their attendance to the regular classes and their social participation in the host countries. Migrant women represent 50% of the newcomers in Europe. The need to empower migrant women to reflect about their needs and to offer them creative education opportunities in line with their family responsibilities is urgent. R1creates an innovative informal language learning path embedded in the experience of creating a personalized city guide of the new home improving thus their language skills while simultaneously enhancing their integration process. During this activity 162 (originally only 25 per country expected) migrant women participated in the learning experience/course and 35 trainers (5 per country originally expected) supported them in the learning process. The creation of the language learning experience and the curriculum are divided in 3 main activities: ACTIVITY 1 includes the designing, developing and implementing of an informal language learning path embedded in the experience of visiting the host city and surroundings with the final aim to create a personalized city guide of their new homes as well as videos describing the learning experience. It designs the pedagogical structure to insert upskilling tasks for speaking, writing, reading and listening, vocabulary and grammar expansion, as weel as, assessment and evaluation sessions as necessary steps to plan, structure and create a final individualized city-guides and videos. For the DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM of this learning experience, in the early stage of the project, every partner organization selects 3 trainers to be the main developers and deliverers of the course. Additionally, 2 more trainers (+ externals) are involved in reviewing, assessing the quality in the process of the design, development and implementation of the course. Participants complete the language learning activities through learning- by-doing. The course promotes peer group working sessions, heterogeneous language levels team work and supports a motivational pedagogy. The completion of activity 1 demanded the following punctual actions: *6 Trainers’ FOCUS GROUPS AT LOCAL LEVEL and *3 Trainers’ FOCUS GROUPS AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL for the collaborative designing, analysis, development and revision of the learning path and the course materials . The delivery of the course includes *10 EXCURSIONS PER COUNTRY, *10 LOCAL EXPERIENCE EXCHANGES with peers in the local language but also *5 INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL EVENTS with peers of other EU countries in migrants’ mother tongues. The aim of these events in the course is to enhance their social interactions, to share ideas & experiences in the host countries with peers living somewhere else. Eventually, these actions support women in the understanding that they are not alone with their own needs. The curriculum of the course presents a program for a total of 36 Indoor Classes (UE) of 90 minutes + 10 Tours. Classes are subdivided into modules with a total of 12 modules presenting each a different topic. The aim of the course is to practice linguistic skills and to put them in practice in class and during the tours. Thus the women are empowered to CREATE in collaborative working experiences PERSONALIZED CITY GUIDES according to the spots in the host cities they mostly wish to visit. During the learning experiences in the class situations they discuss and select the places to be included in their tours. ACTIVITY 2 of R1 includes therefore the different steps necessary to design, structure and CREATE A CITY GUIDE tailored to the experiences the women go through the Feeling Home project. The preliminary content is created in group work while the final version is created by the trainers based on the contribution of the learners. This activity has a positive impact on 162 women that learn to know their host cities, interact with peers outside their families and participate in a team working activities. Further, 35 trainers design, organize, create and conduct innovative informal language courses based on city excursions that conclude with final digital guidebooks improving thus their pedagogical and digital skills. Finally, result 1 includes video recordings of the experience that support promoting activities with the aim to invite future learners, trainers and learning providers to test the learning paths creating their own experiences. In this regard, for every session of the experiences described above the group assigns one person in charge of the visualization recording. Thus one person per session is encouraged to take pictures for the final guidebook and the video that summarize the experience for future beneficiaries. ACTIVITY 3 deals with the PRODUCTION OF FILMS of the learning experience that will ultimately stimulate the replication of the initiative and reflect on the needs of migrant women in our communities bringing different parts of society closer together. The different tasks women need to accomplish for the development of activity 2 and 3 compose the informal learning framework for the linguistic upskilling in the informal language learning situation. In short R1 includes these activities: *6 Trainers’ focus groups at local level *3 Trainers’ focus groups at international level *10 local events with migrant women *10 excursions with migrant women *5 international digital events with migrant women (participation per country min. 2 women) *Design and create a curriculum for an informal language course embedded in the task of creating a city guide from migrant women’s perspective *Pilot the course with a total of 36 Indoor Classes (UE) of 90 minutes + 10 Tours; every class is subdivided into Modules; there are 12 modules in total, each presenting a different topic; *Create a city guide (digital format) each country one (5 languages) *Create 5 films of the experience (5 languages) *Support migrant women with individual coaching sessions if necessary, linguistic support, extra activities involving children in the guide development *Invite regularly other stakeholders/external trainers to support the partnership and get involved in the activities R2 represents THE OPEN INTERACTIVE LEARNING PLATFROM FOR TRAINERS INCLUDING THE METHODOLOGY MANAUAL AND THE LEARNING SPACE FOR TRAINERS AND MIGRANTS The activities of this result were led by EL and all partners contributed to the development and the implementation. The main objective of R2 is to save the learning experience of the R1 course and to facilitate replication and implementation of this course by as many institutions as possible working with migrants. In this sense R2 Act.2 creates an open learning space for practitioners / NGOs supporting migrants to reproduce the course and apply the methodology adapted to their targets’ needs. The need analysis for these activities: The better the teachers, the better the learning results! Teaching languages has never been an easy issue and teaching migrants includes numerous additional components to be considered in the designing of the curricula and the delivering or the courses. Countries affected by mass migration are doing their best to deliver as many language programs as possible to equip migrants with the necessary minimal linguistic skills to establish and integrate in their host countries. The language offers are diverse from country to country and so the prerequisites for the programs. Germany is currently the country in Europe with the most extensive language integration program regarding, length, intensity and target groups. Still, most vulnerable groups of migrants remain excluded from the regular offers. In other EU countries the learning opportunities for migrants are limited in the formats addressing merely the general target group “migrants”. Countless NGOs, migrant welcoming institutions, trainers and volunteers offer different initiatives to fight this situation, however, at this moment after the innumerable obstacles educators have faced during the pandemic, migrant supporting institutions and trainers are exhausted to design new alternatives in line with the needs of the specific groups. R2 develops an open and interactive learning space (moodle) containing the informal learning path created in the R1 training, the methodology, the activities, materials inviting to transfer the activity and the methodology to other target groups. This learning space is customized for the T2 to enhance their teaching opportunities. It provides different upskilling programs for informal and digital teaching strategies including interesting resources for migrant learners. The creation of this result is divided in 2 main activities: Activity 1 includes ANALYSING, MAPPING and DESCRIBING the methodology of the informal language course delivered in R1 and mapping materials and best practices of the course. Every partner involves 3 teachers in the development of this activity and 2 more in reviewing and assessing the quality in the process of the designing, developing and implementing the manual in class. The aim of this MANUAL is to promote professional informal learning formats among practitioners of integration services as language learning alternatives for the most vulnerable migrant groups. It equips migrants’ educators with supporting material, encouraging activities & instructions to replicate the course as it is or to create a similar one adapted to their learners’ needs. The manual has a digital format and it has been created in English with further translations into 5 languages. Activity 2 includes CREATING an open & interactive LEARNING SPACE for trainers in moodle with activities that improve trainers’ teaching skills and encourage learners to participate in similar activities. The main objective of this activity is TO UPSKILL the trainers digitally and to CREATE AN INTERACTIVE AND OPEN LEARNING SPACE THAT SUPPORTS migrants’ educators in concerns of informal language teaching skills. The platform addresses T2 but the content addresses similarly migrants (T1). The introductory video, the digital map collecting the excursions, the videos resuming the learning experiences and the final city guides should motivate them to enroll in similar actions promoting thus language learning programs. Further, for the trainers the learning space includes a repository of digital materials for distance language teaching and a section with links to specific tutorials for language teaching and distance learning (Materials from former projects). The resources include a section on the DigiComEdu Framework. In order to achieve the development of this result, during the development of R2 trainers, teachers and other staff members are supported with 3 digital upskilling sessions on moodle usage, material creation, allocation in the platform and course delivery and one upskilling on production of digital maps. The compiling, analyzing and developing of the materials for the trainers’ manual stared at M7 of the project and took place till the very end of the teaching activity (R1). For the creation of the learning platform itself, trainers conducted need analysis sessions for the final structures and functionalities, a moodle design stage, a setting up and a feeding stage. The Greek partner took the additional technical part of the work, Germany supported other partners with the digital pedagogy and its implementation. Apart from this all partners shared responsibilities and tasks in the same way resulting a substantial digital upskilling experience in the 5 countries. In short R2 includes these activities: *Creation of the Manual with the pedagogical support of DE and graphic support of IT. ES responsible for the final English reading for the manual *3 upskilling events for trainers on creating moodle activities *1 upskilling session on creating digital maps *6 Trainers’ focus groups national *2 Trainers’ focus groups international *Translating the manual *Creating the materials for moodle and uploading them *Create the digital map that includes all visited spots in the 5 countries (ADDITIONAL RESULT) *Translating the exercises and installing them in Moodle ACTIVITIES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PROJECT: In addition to the activities carried out for the development of mentioned main project results partners have implemented numerous background activities that have contributed to successfully reach the project's goals: AT THE MANAGEMENT LEVEL: The signing of the partner agreements at the beginning of the project span, the setting up of the national and international project working groups inviting also external institutions to participate in the process. Creating the communication plan that includes the setting of the structure of the Admin Project Platform that assured a clear management plan including milestones and deadlines and the creation of a transparent communication strategy with regular communication notifications at internal and external level. Regular staff meetings in the different countries, team online meetings and 3 face2face international meetings (Berlin, Athens and Barcelona) attended by each partner. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE QUALITY STRATEGY that includes regular monitoring activities and evaluation reports at internal and external level after each working step and open activity. The creation of the risk management plan and its regular control, the creation of the management reporting tools including timesheets, budget control, project timelines and generating the semester partner reports that were regularly shared in the consortium. IMPLEMENTATION OF PROJECT’S DISSEMINATION, EXPLOITATION AND SUSTAINABILITY strategies that include the project CI, the logo, the templates, Website: https://feelinghomeproject.eu/, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/feelinghomeproject, Leaflet, 4 nicely designed Newsletters distributed among 2500 recipients, organization of 10 national multiplier events engaging further 295 participants in the project aims, regular contacting of partner institutions and involving them in the project developments. Inviting internal and external participants to discover the project’s results and to use the project resources in their classes. Total recipients more than 61000 and 167 dissemination actions.

The project produced different outputs including films of the experience, curricula for the classes with informal methodologies, a manual for educators, digital maps of the visited spots, and guidebooks of the cities authored by the women involved themselves, providing valuable perspectives and feedback. In this section we are describing the specific final products resulted from the activities described in the section above. As already stated, the final first result of Feeling Home offers an informal language course tailored for migrant women, who due to family roles and structural /cultural reasons are not able to attend regular language programs in their host countries. This informal language learning activity the 162 migrant women went through was embedded in the experience of visiting the city and creating a personalized city guidebook of their learning experience. This initiative offered women the chance to exchange with peers at national and international level and to share their experiences also in their mother tongues offering them an opportunity to communicate and enhance their social activities in and outside the host countries. Specific results of the activities: RESULT OF ACTIVITY 1: A LANGUAGE LEARNING INFORMAL CURRICULUM INCLUDING MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES for a total of 36 INDOOR CLASSES (UE) of 90 minutes and 10 TOURS per country. Classes are subdivided into modules presenting several topics and the complete course includes 12 MODULES with 12 topics. The curricula have been implemented in the 5 countries in long term courses conceived as non-formal indoor language classes and informal outdoor adventures like city tours that are described in a city guide. This blend of approaches accommodates diverse learning styles, contributing to a comprehensive and effective language learning experience. All LESSON PLANS for the indoor classes have been collected in a final “FEELING HOME” COURSE CURRICULUM that has been installed in the PROJECT WEBSITE ready to be downloaded and in the LEARNING SPACE R2 supported by various materials. The course curricula have been created in 6 languages (English + national languages). Impact of this result: 162 T1 enhance social interactions and improve language skills during the course, 35 T2 improve teaching skills & enhance interactions with European colleagues The RESULTS OF ACTIVITY 2 include 5 innovative DIGITAL CITY GUIDES that present the city from a new perspective describing the experience of the women in the spots they visited during the course. The spots of the city guides have also been included in a DIGITAL MAP installed in the website and in the learning platform https://feelinghomeproject.eu/interactive_map/. The creation of the CITY GUIDES is the final task participants need to accomplish during the course. Each guidebook (1/country) presents at least 10 places they visited. Impact: 162 T1 learn to know their host cities, interact with peers outside their families and participate in a team working activities. RESULT OF ACTIVITY 3: 5 FILMS resuming the experiences in the different countries created in 5 languages. Impact: 162 T1 share their experiences & expectations at local & European level and 35 trainers experiment with video editing activities. Beyond that, the implementation of the informal course improves the teaching skills of the trainers involved in the project and while the first result focuses on the T1 (migrant women / learners) the second addresses mostly the trainers (T2) and is composed by two elements: THE TEACHERS’ METHODOLOGY MANUAL (R2 Act.1) that presents teachers’ experience accumulated in the project life and previously acquired knowhow related to informal teaching environments. The manual is the teachers’ instrument to improve their teaching skills at various levels and includes the methodology, best practices piloted in R1 and it maps activities including teaching materials. Further, this teaching experience should be carried out by as many institutions as possible working with migrants. So, R2 produces an OPEN LEARNING SPACE (R2 Act. 2) for practitioners/NGOs supporting migrants to replicate the course and to apply the methodology adapted to their targets’ needs. The FEELING HOME LEARNING SPACE is an interactive learning platform (moodle) addressing the needs of the migrant organizations and trainers working with migrants searching for impulse, examples and guidelines for the implementation of alternative informal learning options for their target groups. Further, it includes a repository of digital resources for language training. This digital open learning space is created in 6 languages (5+ English). For the moment it has 175 active users. All results listed here have been created under the creative commons license CCBY and are open to be used by anybody. To the outputs of the main results the project has created the following: PROJECT LOGO, project WEBSITE, FACEBOOK page, regular POSTS on the project’s development and related topics in SM channels, LEAFLETS in 6 languages, 4 NEWSLETTERS in 6 languages. STRATEGIES for: COMMUNICATION, DISSEMINATION, RISK management, EXPLOITATION&SUSTAINABILITY, EVALUATION and MONITORING Tools (internal and external): Questionnaires and forms; MANAGEMENT REPORTS: Interim and final reports, ALLOCATION of a digital project MANAGEMENT SYSTEM created in the Admin Project Platform including all working steps, communication, structures, financial documents, dissemination proofs and final outcomes AGENDAS and MINUTES for the regular online meetings as well as the 3 international meetings. Final internal reports on dissemination activities, evaluation activities, sustainability and exploitation plan. All internal communication materials have been created in English. The PPT PRESENTATIONS and AGENDAS for the 10 multiplier events have been created in the different national languages. Most relevant results have been uploaded to the “Erasmus+ Project Results Platform” in different languages.