EUROPEAN CIVIL SOCIETY PLATFORM FOR MULTILINGUALISM

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Jan 2019 - Dec 2019

3,400€

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Symposium entitled “BEYOND LANGUAGE BARRIERS” (1/12/2017) held in Athens, Greece, with the support of the Hellenic Open University and the School of Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The themes addressed were:
a) the social, aesthetic and linguistic literacies for the creative participation in European societies of displaced populations and people in adversity; b) the role of translation, technology and linguistic resources for the safe-guarding of multilingualism in Europe. Presented at the Symposium were also the work of the ECSPM member and partner organisations and all the talks delivered at the Symposium (ppt presentations) were on the ECSPM website: http://ecspm.org/ecspm-events/beyond-language-barriers/.
Symposium entitled “MAKING A PARADIGM SHIFT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MULTILITERATE AND PLURILINGUAL AGENCIES: POLICIES, PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES AND ACTION RESEARCH” (26-28/09/2018) held in Darmstadt, Germany. This Symposium was organized to celebrate the European Day of Languages, and it was hosted and financially supported by the Language, Linguistics and Multilingualism Centre of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. The talks delivered at the Symposium (ppt presentations) have been published on the ECSPM website: http://ecspm.org/ecspm-events/beyond-language-barriers/.
Symposium entitled “MULTILINGUAL CHALLENGES: MEDIATING IMAGES, LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY“ (21-22 March 2019) held in Reading, UK. The 2019 ECSPM Symposium focused on mediation as a critical aspect of communication, particularly in multilingual and multicultural settings, and as a crucial competence involving vision, creativity and skills. While appreciating creativity and vision in works of art and in well-translated texts which are produced by professionals, communicative mediation skills for everyone may and should be developed effectively in pedagogical contexts that aim at educating learners so that they may become plurilingual, multiliterate, life-long learners, able to communicate effectively in multilingual settings, dealing successfully with linguistic and discursive diversity, as well as with multimodal forms of linguistic expression and representation.

As of early 2016 the ECSPM is an independent non-governmental, non-profit association, registered according to Danish Law: Registration No. CVR 37116866, to carry on the work of the ‘Platform’ on Multilingualism, launched by the Commission, supported by the DG EAC, in 2009, and re-launched in 2012, and mandated to work toward the development of: (a) coherent plans to raise awareness regarding the value of European linguistic diversity (b) strategies allowing Europeans to learn at least two languages plus L1 starting from an early age, and (c) proposals facilitating the mainstreaming of multilingualism in relevant EU programmes and policies.
The ECSPM continues to work for the right of all Europeans to learn two languages in addition to the official language of the country in which they live, study and work, and to ensure that Europe’s rich linguistic and cultural diversity is maintained because these are viewed as crucial for the future of Europe
ECSPM also operates for the promotion of research into multilingualism, as well as for the endorsement and development of language policies for multilingualism in all aspects of social life by way of focusing on people, and on their ability to use a variety of semiotic resources to access education, social affairs and culture, to participate as active citizens, to benefit from better communication and wider employment opportunities. It has 29 European Networks as its founding members, 17 European Networks as its active members (6 more pending for active membership), 4 partnerships, while it is advised by a Multilingualism Expert Group of 11 distinguished academics.

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