The project “Learning how to read and write functional French in context for adults” – FOCAALE aims at supporting migrants who are learning French and have received little or no education, by producing dedicated pedagogical material and designing an online training framework, which will contribute to developing trainers’ skills in this area. Following recent waves of migration towards Europe, the International Organization for Migration’s Displacement Tracking Matrix has recorded 390 432 entries by sea and land in 2016, followed by 186 768 entries in 2017, that is a total of 577 200 arrivals within two years. EU countries have adopted policies to enable newly arrived migrants to learn the language of their receiving country. However, these learners make up a heterogeneous audience with varied levels and backgrounds, which makes teaching them a complex task. Regrettably, it has been reported that among a group that is highly disadvantaged and vulnerable, adults who have received little or no education do not receive adequate lessons. Indeed, the teaching material available for this specific group in French speaking countries is very limited. In addition, lessons are delivered by volunteers who work for charities and who, in spite of their good will, do not have the relevant skills to teach this very specific audience. Yet, linguistic integration is key to the migrants’ autonomy and integration in their receiving country. The FOCAALE project provides an answer to this specific issue by fostering the collaboration between 4 partners located in 3 French speaking countries (Belgium, France and Luxembourg) and who represent the main stakeholders in this field: organisations responsible for training teachers of French as a Second Language, organisations in charge of delivering French classes to migrants and associations which strive to facilitate their integration. The project aims first at making a full inventory of research studies, teaching material and good practices already available in participating countries. This inventory will lead to producing a comparative summary, which will highlight the progress and obstacles to teaching French to adult migrants who cannot read or write, and will be followed by the design of specific teaching material, which will be tested with actual migrants. As soon as it has been finalised, this teaching material will be completed by an online training framework. This framework will be made up of free access modules and will aim at providing teachers with the skills necessary to teach French to adult migrants who cannot read or write, skills which will have been identified in particular through the inventory. These activities will lead to the publication of recommendations that will aim to raise awareness among the numerous stakeholders in the field, therefore ensuring that project results effectively contribute to improving linguistic support for adults with limited literacy skills. As a result, by dealing with the issue of teaching French both from a trainer’s and a learner's perspective, the FOCAALE project will contribute to improving the level of French of adult migrants newly arrived in French-speaking countries and to professionalising trainers in charge of this specific group.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is still taking place and it is not entirely clear what its consequences hold for us, one of the facts that remains certain is that the lockdown has introduced drastic changes to education systems around the world. In fact, switching to digital schooling has caused significant disturbances to education systems. At the same time, it has opened up new opportunities to revise and advance existing teaching methods and tools. One of them consists in the transnational interconnectedness of today’s world that makes the challenges we are currently facing teach us to be more united and promote international knowledge sharing and cooperation. In this respect, the KEEP project represents the European initiative to set in motion and expand such transnational sharing of innovate practices and knowledge. The general objective of the KEEP project is to help reducing school underachievement and low involvement in the learning process among students in Europe caused by their inability to physically attend schools. In order to achieve it, the following specific objectives were set: 1. Contribute to overcoming and preventing school failure in Europe increased by COVID-19 pandemic2.Assist the improvement of European teachers’ pedagogical and digital skills and competences3.Strengthen teachers’ and students’ engagement to support students’ learning4.Help to safeguard the inclusive nature of education in Europe following COVID-19 PandemicIn order to achieve these objectives the following activities will be undertaken during the project realisation. Firstly, digital schooling practices that were implemented during COVID-19 in partnership countries (Belgium, France, Greece, Poland) will be identified with a help of tailor-made interviews with teachers operating in various environments and working conditions. Secondly, the result of the interviews will be thoroughly analysed in order to devise Teachers’ portraits that will be subsequently shared with European education community through the dedicated web page. Along with creating the Teachers portraits, the KEEP project will detect and disseminate the practices that can be retained and used after the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on these two types of deliverables, dialogue and knowledge-sharing between European educators and teachers will be launched and further supported through a dedicated web page with the project’s results and dedicated forum. To sum up, the full name of the project, Key engaging educational practices used by secondary school teachers to keep connected with their students following COVID-19 pandemic (KEEP) speaks for itself. Through the KEEP project realisation, we seeks to reveal, examine, share, and, most importantly, discuss practices that were used by secondary school teachers in order to keep students involved in the learning process. Thus the project’s main participants are secondary school teachers facing challenges related to digital schooling. It is foreseen that thousands of European secondary school teachers will benefit from the project. Moreover, school leaders, local educational institutions and policy-makers as well as researchers in education will benefit from the KEEP project realization, published documents and events. The main methodology applied in the KEEP Project will be structured around the development of the outputs. ·Creating a situational review of the best national and international digital schooling practices·Preparing the “national” eco-systemic contextualization of the practices for each partnership country ·Conducting interviews with a selection of teachers and devising their portraits·Devising analytical summary of these practices ·Disseminating and launching the dialogue around the project’s findings in Europe·Realising a report of the lessons learned and recommendations for future actionsThus the KEEP project will strengthen the professional development and digital pedagogical competences of secondary-level teachers by making them acquainted with best practices used by their colleagues to keep their students connected and engaged with learning experience. Promoting knowledge sharing and networking between teachers is at the heart of the KEEP project realization. We expect that the teacher portraits, practices overview and discussions around them that will result from the KEEP project will inspire European teachers to develop and expand their own practices in a time when digital education is crucial to the success of every student. Moreover, through collegial reflection and exchange on the teachers’ digital practices following COVID-19 pandemic, the KEEP project will eventually allow a better understanding of the European E-Teaching ecosystem, which in its turn could facilitate and promote further exchange of experiences and practices between European partners inside and outside the project.