Unibo structure involved: Department of Interpretation and Translation - DIT
Scientific manager: Rachele Antonini
Unibo Team: Rachele Antonini, Ira Torresi, Erika Dalan (Research Manager)
Project Web page: http://pagines.uab.cat/eylbid/en
Erasmus+ Action type: Strategic Partnerships for school education
Project reference: 2019-1-ES01-KA201-064417
Start Date: 31 December 2019
End Date: 30 December 2021
Budget: Total: € 152,900 UNIBO: € 22,364
Coordinator: UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA (ES)
Partners:
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON (UK)
KANEDA GAMES S.L. (ES)
THE OPEN UNIVERSITY (UK)
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITÄT HANNOVER (DE)
ALMA MATER SYUDIORUM - UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA (IT)
Summary:
EYLBID is a strategic partnership of 5 higher education institutions (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, which is also the project leader; The Open University and the University of Northampton, UK; Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy; and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany), as well as a software developer company (Kaneda Games), with the participation of associate partners from the educational field (secondary schools and educational policy makers). It focuses on one of the European horizontal priorities: social inclusion. As to field specific, EYLBID fits to the priority of promoting a comprehensive approach to language teaching and learning, specifically, building on the increasing linguistic diversity in schools. Particularly, it focuses on linguistic and intercultural mediation and interpreting performed by teenagers.
Children and teenagers take an important role in migratory processes. Schooling and linguistic immersion in the new society help children learn the official language(s) of the new country faster than their parents might do. For this reason, parents and other relatives with limited language proficiency (LLP) in local languages often rely on children and teenagers to translate and interpret for them when they need to communicate in the host society. One of the terms used by researchers to refer to this phenomenon is “child language brokering”. Antonini (2015:88) provides the following definition: "Child language brokering (CLB) denotes interpreting and translation activities carried out by bilingual children who mediate linguistically and culturally in formal and informal contexts and domains for their family and friends as well as members of the linguistic community to which they belong."
The Strategic Partnership has three main objectives: (1) to have a better understanding of language brokering by young people across Europe, (2) to propose a set of guidelines for child and youth language brokering in Europe, (3) to design activities related to language brokering to be included in high schools’ curricula, (4) to create flexible open educational resources that can be used in different learning environments. These general objectives will lead to the following specific objectives: to empower children and teenagers in the new society through the revaluation of heritage languages; to promote linguistic and cultural diversity at high schools; to raise awareness of the risks of this practice beyond communication to conduct minor bureaucratic tasks; to raise awareness among young people of the value and importance of multilingualism in Europe nowadays; to disseminate new approaches to involve students with less possibilities (due to cultural differences) in classroom activities; to introduce the Interpreting profession among young students; to improve social cohesion of teenagers with an immigrant background.
The project will involve the participation of teachers and students at secondary education. The Strategic Partnership will use a methodology inspired by action-research (pre-study, implementation of action and post-study) to create six outputs that will contribute to the achievement of these objectives. The six outputs that will be created are: a curricular design and specific activities to be included in secondary education classes tackling issues concerning young language brokering and public service interpreting (IO1), a handbook for teachers to conduct activities concerning young language brokering and the promotion of heritage languages, as well as linguistic and cultural diversity at schools (IO2), an educational awareness-raising video, that can be used at schools to promote discussion and critical thinking (IO3), a strategy videogame where students will have to make informed decisions to solve problems related to child language brokering (IO4), a training capsule offered through eTwinning platform (IO5) and research articles that will present most relevant academic results of the project (IO6).
The project will have an impact in secondary education, but also in other levels of education: vocational education, continuing education for teachers, university courses at degree level. In the long term, it might also have an impact on policy makers as well as in public services where minors are often asked to interpret for their parents and relatives.