VirtuLApp: Virtual Language App
Specific programme: Erasmus+ KA2
UPV/EHU Partner Status: Beneficiary
UPV/EHU PI: Durk Gorter
Project start: 01/09/2018
Project end: 31/08/2021
Brief description: Strengthening the profile of the teaching profession and Promoting the acquisition of skills and competences:
A topic widely debated is the increasing workload of teachers in addressing students’ needs and managing their tasks, especially in a multilingual classroom. Workload experience is closely linked to teachers' motivation (Richardson, Karabenick & Watt, 2014).
Especially at the level of primary education, the willingness of schools and teachers to include other languages then the regions autochthonous language(s) is low. This is because of a lack of knowledge about multilingual education and its advantages and the lack of hands-on skills on how to implement a multilingual didactic in their classroom (Fürstenau 2016 and Helot 2015).
This is an even bigger challenge for schools and teachers in bi-/multilingual areas in which several languages already compete for often scarce resources in education ( teaching hours, teacher training, materials) (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). Speakers of minority and migrant languages must compete with national (and increasingly also foreign) languages for an equal position in the curriculum.