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Includes 1 CD ROM inside back cover

The LEA (Language Educator Awareness) training kit comprises a set of practical instruments designed to help teacher educators introduce the essential aspects of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism to language teachers and learners. It consists of a printed booklet setting out the rationale for a series of training activities, which are contained on an accompanying CD-Rom. The kit encourages language teachers to reflect on the notion of diversity, which is so fundamental an element in the process of linguistic and communicative education - the "dialogue with the other". Its ultimate goal is to contribute towards building a school capable of providing local and global perspectives on the language curriculum, of offering communication opportunities with peoples and cultures from far away as well as nearby and of promoting the ability to speak languages with different statuses and functions.

This text is one of a series of six studies which present the work carried out at the European Centre for Modern Languages. The aim of the series is to highlight the results already achieved and provide a point of departure for the future work of the ECML.

The aim of this publication is to assist teacher educators and language teachers in shifting the focus from linguistic competence to intercultural communicative competence. The printed booklet of the present guide contains the introductions to: definitions of key terms in intercultural communication; planning and designing intercultural communication courses and workshops; teaching/training methods and materials; and assessing intercultural communicative competence. The materials on the accompanying CD-ROM include: the theoretical background to teaching language and culture; detailed workshop and course planning guidelines; teaching materials and activities based on literature, films and songs; guidelines and tasks for assessment and descriptors of competences; intercultural communication workshop reports; and our research articles about the intercultural dimension of foreign language teaching (FIT).--Publisher's description.

The Council of Europe stresses the importance of multilingualism in society and of individual plurilingual competence as means to social cohesion. Ultimately, it is within the school that the necessary innovations need to take place. The case studies presented in this publication are an authentic illustration of how this is being realised in different contexts and what successes and challenges it presents. By bringing these innovative language education programmes and school profiles to the fore, its participating in the creation of a new paradigm of school leadership whereby pupils, parents and the local community, instead of being excluded, controlled and forgotten become actively involved in language endeavours. Similarly, teachers can move on from being simply the executors of education programmes to becoming participants in drawing up, implementing and evaluating school policies.

This book is targeted at modern languages teachers of primary school children and focuses on curricula and syllabi, as well as on teaching materials and methodology. The papers look into issues related to both pre- and in-service teacher education, innovative curriculum and syllabus design in tertiary education and lower primary schools, and how new ideas can be implemented at national and classroom levels. The first six papers focus on teacher education curricula and teacher development in pre-service and in-service programs, whereas the last four papers examine curricula, teaching materials and projects in primary schools.--Publisher's description.

Report of a workshop held in Graz, Austria on September 11, 2001