"The project ""LEAD- Learning, Experiencing, and Awareness of the Diversity"" emerged in the contemporary socio-political situation across the globe. The great migrants' crisis that struck the world has affected all European countries. Being aware that we weren't able to change the situation, we decided to change the environment. The project "" LEAD"" aimed at conveying a positive image of people with various backgrounds. It empowered them to see the diversity as an asset, and migrants' crisis as an opportunity. Contact with other cultures opened eyes, minds, and hearts. The project aimed at broadening the students' horizons and providing a future perspective through cooperation, and thus facilitating labor market integration. EU citizenship and the fundamental values of the EU: respect for diversity, intercultural dialogue, tolerance, and social inclusion are the fundamental objectives of our project. We considered one of the aims of this project the active citizenship through peer leadership.The participants were teachers and students from four schools in Poland, Spain, Italy, and Bulgaria. Two of the schools were general educational, and two were vocational. The project included a large number of students,15-19 years old, of each school that comes from various backgrounds. Two of the schools were general educational, and two were vocational. We believed that schools had a key role in supporting integration, preventing discrimination, and promoting tolerance and respect. The teachers were chosen from those who were open-minded and aware of the needed changes in their students. They invested in the inter-cultural and social skills of their students that they needed to cope with diversity. The teachers were responsible for involving students in various activities, boosting their key competencies to deal with their prejudices. The project LEAD aimed at using various learning methods. These were experienced creating skills to deal with xenophobia and prejudices against the different. It's of great importance today to pay attention to our students' social inclusion because of the contemporary situation with the refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. Tolerance and social inclusion were the basic objectives of our project.We hope that during the project, we improved the awareness of diversity and the 21st-century competencies of all participants - taking part in the project, and thus reducing disparities. The activities used to be diverse and focused on creating ""hard"" skills like digital and foreign language competences; photographic abilities; knowledge of the diversity and healthy living, and use them as a means enhancing ""soft"" skills like self-esteem, responsibility, active citizenship, problem-solving, creativity, initiative etc. through diversity issues. The project focused on how to organize web education in a proper useful and creative way. This activity had been realized by the application and exchange of good teaching practices among the partnering schools. We considered it a good approach if we had increased our students' awareness of healthy living. We did this by a lot of activities due to nature, food styles, sports, etc. We also saw this project as an alternative objective to engage students in extra-curriculum activities that would keep them away from certain negative influences. This activity also had lead to the reducing of disparities. Teachers had applied many strategies by using different approaches and resources. They engaged and included individuals and groups during formal and informal education: such as Motivational approach; Involving classmates (cooperative learning, peer- tutoring); flipped classroom method; the method of lateral thinking called the ""Six hats""; the ""Factory of learning""; project-based learning approach; teaching through workshops based on problem solving, learning ability to cope with possible difficulties; forum - theatre method; world café approach; the story-telling approach. There were shown many lessons throughout the visits and in between. We used the "" Atlas of prejudices "" and especially ""Tearing Europe apart "" to make students realize what were the prejudices for the European peoples and how the students assessed them. Throughout the project, students carried out research work. The project teams searched and published interesting information like publications, Internet sites which they used in their learning practices. Throughout the project, there had been experienced teamwork by the Internet to create a Picture Dictionary. It included terms related to the objectives of the project. In all the exchanges were organized cultural evenings that aimed to present the traditions of the visited countries. Thus the participants understood the features in common and the diversity of every nation. We considered an innovative approach to celebrating the holidays. They were linked with the project's objectives at all the partnering schools like for example, the"

Biological diversity conservation measures are vitally important for urban areas. Scientific research proves that stable ecosystems with successful biocenosis substantially increase the ability of any urban environment to withstand the pollution and human impact of urban environment. At the same time, researchers claim that in general people are less interested in conservation methods that protect wildlife, such as plants, fungi, insects, birds, and small mammals. Therefore, modern urban communities are in need of new innovative ideas on how to attract and sustain biological diversity with a positive impact on the city environment. The project cities, Riga, Bucharest, Burgas, and Mersin, possess a vast variety of biotopes, such as city parks, sea coastline, river banks, and other green zones where biological diversity can be researched and successfully sustained with the help of functional recommendations and for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the city. Designed for two years, and targeting 14–18-year-old young people from Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, Green City Life aims at developing a set of such recommendations to be used by city authorities and city dwellers. Confronted with the COVID-19 restrictions and other negative effects of the pandemic, the partners could not meet in 2020 in Riga as planned. The time of the project was extended by one year and the final meeting was held online hosted by Riga. In cooperation with the natural sciences and environmental institutions, students studied and researched the biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic ecological factors, which affect biological diversity in the urban area. The students and teachers made photos of the ecologically beneficial and degrading city territories and objects and presented them at the exhibition at every partner school and later in Burgas. The purpose for that was selecting the territories and object in the city which can be improved. Later 3D models were created to respond to the needs of the urban environment and create the bases for the Set of Recommendations. The Green City Life 3Models feature successful biocenosis, or a community of organisms living together, and can be used for city planning and development in every partner city and over Europe. The innovation reveals itself in analysing and summarizing everyone's experience and next practices and creating a model and a set of recommendations which do not exist in each partner city. Apart from the opportunity to enhance their research, problem solving and analysis skills, the participants will be able to work in teams in a cross-cultural, multilingual environment, by creating a meaningful, sustainable product, which may be used in all the partner states, the young people from different countries of Europe and Turkey will feel empowered and inspired to become socially and environmentally responsible citizens.

As stated in the Council Recommendation (2019/C 189/03), multilingual competence is at the heart of the vision of an EEA. With increasing mobility for education, training and work inside the Union, education systems need to reconsider the challenges in teaching and learning of languages and the opportunities provided by Europe's linguistic diversity. Increasing and improving language learning and teaching could strengthen the European dimension in education. Multilingual competence provides a better understanding of other cultures, thus contributing to the development of citizenship and democratic competences. Almost half of Europeans report that they are unable to hold a conversation in any language other than their first language.Taking into account this challenge, the project team is aimed to address the following identified needs:- To raise the level of attendance to school of bilingual students.- To address specific aspects in education of pupils whose parents works abroad.- To improve the performance of teachers who are not specialized in teaching in foreign language.The overall objective of the project is to provide training content for teachers who aren`t specialized in teaching in foreign language thus merging the propositions of the Content and Language Integrated Learning Framework in order to allow creation of lesson conspectus commonly made in English by teachers and students.The project has the following specific objectives:- Identification of taught subjects and lessons for intervention;- Selection of teaching and training materials, pedagogical approaches and tools;- Creation of the training course and teacher `s manual;- Creation of interactive support set.Within the project the following participants across BG, IS, RS and GR will be involved:- Teachers non-specialized in language training (at least 80 in total);- Bicultural students from minority or migrant origin (at least 120 in total);- Bilingual students from families from which at least one parent is working abroad (at least 100 in total).The project will include the following activities:= Development, piloting and optimization of intellectual outputs:IO1 Training course on insertion of English sections in subjects non related with foreign language training (with curriculum and learning modules);IO2 Example Lesson Sections on humanitarian/STEM subjects;IO3 Interactive Support Set;= Project management, dissemination, quality monitoring and exploitationIn order to produce the planned outputs and to achieve the results, the project team has adopted a methodology consisting of a set of the following approaches:- Building of deliverable-oriented work breakdown structure around the project’s desired outcomes;- Selection of proper methods for project management;- Using of up-to-date technological tools;- Structuring of balanced hierarchy framework of involved actors;- Maintaining proper document and reporting system preventing from misunderstanding due to different language levels;- Mobilizing of associated partners and partner organisation outside the consortium.On its completion the project will achieve the following results:- Stimulate entering the teachers into contacts with colleagues from abroad;- Provide support by language specialists towards strengthening the perspectives of teaching professionals rending good examples to newcomers in the career;- Enhancement of the attractiveness of undesirable learning subjects and lessons by students facing challenges in cultural or language integration in participating countries;- Offering a practical supporting tool for school teachers to ameliorate their understanding of the needs for embedding multilingual teaching and further development of social and communication skills of students in order to prepare them for the complexity of the globalizing world;- Establishing of multilingual online platform for exchange of knowledge, advising and feedback;- Strengthen the understanding and skills of students in areas such as multiculturalism, diversity, successful employment, active citizenship, social inclusion, equal opportunities and managing of personal change;- Support the diffusion of the CLIL approach into mainstream educational programs concerning non-language subjects. The potential project longer term benefits will be expressed by:- Decreasing the number of teachers facing difficulties with dealing with using a foreign language in class;- Improving educational achievements of students by developing multilingual skills and communication competences needed in the globalizing world;- Improving the understanding of the fundamentals of the language interaction;- Improved intergenerational relations due to unifying of understanding of the values and usage of more than one language;- Improved language and learning to learn competences related to support students`s successful transfer from school to employment by the family.

"This project has focus on the idea of contemporary Europe. The refugee crisis in 2015 brought a lot of information, sometimes untrue, about immigration in Europe. Free movement of people has been the key ideas of the common idea of European Union. Therefore, we have a lot of people from different backgrounds in our home countries. Some countries have been target countries while others have been in transit position. The populist movements around Europe have strengthened at the same. In this project we collect knowledge of our culture and how it has evolved in history, then we study statistics of immigration and policies related to the topic with the help of local authorities, NGO's and ordinary people alike. After the statistical work we visit businesses with international background from worker or founder point of view. We build idea how a native gets work in home country compared to immigrant from another country.The social inclusion is one of the key priorities in this project. We want to involve students from different backgrounds. Some partners have bigger number than others. Even when there is limited number of immigrants they might not be encouraged to take part in the project and that is one thing this project wants to have an impact. Also, we are going take local immigrants involved as we visit their companies and compare their business stories. This will give a boost for self-esteem for them as being respected members of society and we would like to see their children to look education as a possibility with this encouragement.We are a group of six schools (institutions) from different parts of Europe. The very experienced Finnish school will be the main coordinator. The other experienced schools are the Polish and Bulgarian partners. The other three partners from Italy, Latvia and Spain have experience as institution, but they might have new staff members. We have set our timetable in a way that institutions can and will learn from each other. The task distribution has been done in order to respect this learning process but also to let schools to use their skills and qualities. All the schools have at least two committed teachers for the whole project.Our methodology is based on project based learning. We will start from looking at the evolution of own culture. Second, we will study immigrants have and will shape our society. Third, we will visit companies with multicultural environment and build our own business ideas from the perspective of a native and of an immigrant. Fourth, there will be a research of educational possibilities offered by EU and also a study of key EU institutions. When phases 1-4 are done, we will contact each partner country's MEP (Member of European Parliament) as a phase number five with the results we have gathered. The final product will be a letter/proposal how an integration of immigrants should be done in our students point of view. Normally, students of our institutions are not eligible for voting due to age, but this proposal gives an idea to policy makers how youth sees the solutions for the problems caused by peoples movement around Europe. There comes the title ""From Eurodivision to Eurovision"". Our proposal is a vision of how social inclusion, integration and future labor market should work. All the activities will lead to this letter which is also given to all those who have participated project as cooperators. So the final product is open for discussion both local and European level. Throughout project we will use eTwinning as our communication tool and we will set open guest accounts for visitors alike. We value the idea and achievement and we will apply a European quality label for the project in eTwinning.The expected impacts will be related to open discussion of better inclusion of minority groups. On the local level, all the participants will get an impression how situations vary between natives and newcomers. These results are also disseminated to local policy makers, schools, law enforcement and non-government actors. The social inclusion will step into the picture as we look immigrants as already functioning parts of our society by them part of our project-based learning. This hopefully encourage families to take into the activities of the society for example in the field of education as we want especially students from different backgrounds to take part in the project. In the last step, when we have established contacts with MEPs, the publicity is guaranteed because none of our schools are located in the most developed areas of countries (for example in the capital areas). This will have a hopefully long-term impact in our regions which will get us a new vision of Europe. That is the main core of ""From Eurodivision to Eurovision, FETE) project."

<< Background >>[MOTIVATION TO APPLY]Given that English is the dominant international language of the 21st century - spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people (British Council, 2013) and considering the impact it has on various educational and professional aspects it comes as no surprise that attention should be drawn to making its acquisition by non-native speakers as effective and fruitful as possible. In Europe alone, the percentage of students learning English exceeds 90% (European Commission, 2012) and although the target language learning started hundreds of years ago through conventional methods in traditional classrooms, over the past years great emphasis has been put on coming up with innovative English language teaching methods that involve utilizing the latest technological advances (Carless, 2012). While available for quite a long time, the digital teaching methods had not been fully appreciated until the outbreak of Covid-19, which worked as the triggering event that brought more attention to distance learning as schools in more that 161 countries were forced to closure and virtual classrooms have replaced physical ones for more than a year now leading both ELT instructors and learners to embrace technology to carry on with their work. Suddenly, all the educational approaches that had been used in class up to that moment - such as problem- and game-based learning techniques that encourage interaction among learners and engage them in realistic scenarios - should somehow be transferred online by utilizing the available infrastructure to reduce the impact through remote learning strategies and explore innovative instructional methods without missing out on the benefits of classroom based learning. In view of the above, one would expect the ELT industry to be filled with a plethora of digital problem-based learning options allowing for a variety of learning alternatives to choose from; however, this is not the case and a noticeable gap is detected when it comes to available digital PBL experiences in the ELT field.[NEEDS ADDRESSED]Social distancing has affected all aspects of children’s education and priority has been given to finding new ways of making remote learning engaging for STEM subjects which have been affected the most from the loss of classroom based collaborative problem solving. However, ELT is also a subject that is missing out on the benefits of collaborative learning and can benefit substantially from a digital learning environment which facilitates PBL and collaboration such as the Minecraft Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) environment.English language teachers are in need of turnkey approaches for applying Problem Based Learning remotely, in virtual classrooms. The majority of today's approaches lack engaging lesson plans suitable for ELT. Even though Minecraft is an ideal environment for delivering PBL experiences, today there is no framework to fully support Problem Based Learning in a specific educational context, let alone for ELT. This is what Follow Me to Minecraft aims to change through the offering of a complete framework to support PBL for ELT in Minecraft.Follow Me to Minecraft will harness the power of Minecraft to create a fun learning experience through activities aligned to level A1 of the CEFR and are designed to focus on the skills and knowledge required by English language learners to communicate successfully at this level. Problem-based learning enables students to embrace complexity, find relevance and joy in their learning, and enhance their capacity to make creative contributions to real-world problems [Source: Sr. Preetha Ram, Microsoft Education, Using Minecraft: Education Edition in problem-based learning]The project is for teachers of English to learn how to adapt face-to-face teaching skills to a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) environment.<< Objectives >>Virtual classrooms have replaced physical classrooms and teachers embraced technology to continue their work. However, it is not straightforward or even possible sometimes to make up for activities which until now have significant educational value when carried out physically. Responding to this need, the project aims at filling this gap using Minecraft (a sandbox video game which works as an ideal digital learning environment for delivering independent or guided learning experiences) to promote PBL in ELT. FOLLOW ME TO MINECRAFT is expected to educate ELT instructors on how to administer remote PBL ELT experiences through digital learning channels so as to ensure students continue to harness the benefits of collaborative problem solving as they used to prior to the advent of COVID-19. This education will not be solely theoretical, as teachers will be equipped with concrete usable resources for delivering remote ELT through Minecraft without the need to devote a significant amount of time to integrate them to their teaching. This means that the ELT environment that will be developed in Minecraft, will work as a complete solution and will be a legacy for ELT instructors. Finally, there will be constant room for changes and improvement as a mechanism will be developed to collect the instructors’ views and learners’ experience of the venture in a fun and engaging way that will guarantee truthfulness. Thereby, ELT instructors worldwide will have a chance to discover what the challenges as well as the preferences around PBL in ELT are through the witnesses of associates that have actively participated in it.Since 2013, American and Swedish schools have been systematically integrating Minecraft into their schools, and it is being used around the world to teach science, urban planning and foreign languages. Masses of educational applications and experiences using Minecraft are available online. [Source: https://bit.ly/3ozg9Ns] The educational potential of Minecraft as a Massively Multiplayer Online Game has been explored by a few initiatives and conclusions are very positive as it can be asserted also by the growing community of Minecraft Education comprising teachers, educators and parents and the constantly increasing pool of Minecraft resources.The project will educate the teachers on how to administer remote PBL ELT experiences through digital learning channels so as to ensure students continue to harness the benefits of collaborative problem solving as they used to prior to the advent of COVID-19.Instructors and language schools will directly benefit from this tool, as they will become familiar with some of the most modern learning environments and acquire skills in operating them that will help them to stand out in the field of ELT and become more competitive. The greatest part is that they will be fully guided towards using Minecraft for ELT through a handbook with numerous specifications and methods, so they will not have to spend time navigating through the concept by themselves. Moreover, the teaching process will become an easier task for them as they will be able to keep their students’ interest alive through personalised activities that reflect today’s youth’s preferences. Learners will gain numerous advantages, too, since the learning process will become fun for them and a reason to be more focused and committed to their homework will arise.A Minecraft world based on a storyboard was created by ATERMON and HESO. This world served as proof of concept for the feasibility of the envisaged results. The demo world can be downloaded and used from here (there is also a video of the game): demos.atermon.nl/grammarion Minecraft is an ideal digital learning environment for delivering independent or guided learning experiences and the project will explore language teaching within the engaging and creative context offered by the world of Minecraft where children already spend significant time. Lets give them purpose!!<< Implementation >>FOLLOW ME will deliver a new educational tool to be used both in ELT classrooms and at home by instructors and learners respectively, comprising a teacher’s guide and a complete set of activities to be performed in a digital learning space. This will be achieved through a series of constant collaboration between subject matter experts (aka ELT professionals), game developers to first identify the needs and set the learning objectives, and later on implement them in a virtual environment. Stories help young learners remember their experiences in second languages and so an overarching narrative can tie together the puzzles for the learners to solve within Minecraft. Apart from facilitating the understanding of English, the game will also encourage skills that are important as learning outcomes, such as curiosity, creativity, perseverance, problem-solving, and collaboration.Project activities comprise:- Methods for delivering PBL experiences through Minecraft for ELT and PBL specifications for Minecraft environments: The elaborated methods will help the ELT teachers that will use the project outputs to make the best use of the FOLLOW ME Minecraft world and Minecraft in general through the conceptualisation of their own PBL challenges, ideally through co-creation with their students.- Lesson structure: The duration and structure of the lesson to be delivered through the game. Language focus will be on adjectives, comparative adjectives, answering questions - Students learn to follow instructions and explore linguistic challenges in a safe environment - Students practice spelling and communication skills.- PBL challenges for ELT: These are the challenges that will be delivered through the project dedicated Minecraft world.- Minecraft World: A dedicated custom Minecraft world to deliver to the learners the elaborated ELT challenges in the context of a mission to be accomplished.- Mission: The complete game scenario describing the non-player characters (NPCs), the game elements, the walkthrough introducing the different game areas and tasks, the after the game practicing session. - Parent's Guide: Designed for parents who would like to guide their children through the lesson at home. - Teacher Pack: Designed for teachers who would like to introduce the Follow Me to Minecraft game as part of their English Language teaching lessons.- LTTA: A 3-day workshop for training the subsequent trainers on the use of the results and in the process identify improvements and corrections- Feedback loop: The mechanism for obtaining an assessment of the administrators (teacher’s) views and the learners (children’s) experience.- Instructional material and guides will support the integration of the FOLLOW ME Minecraft Game to the ELT teaching - The results will be tested first internally and then an improved version based on the results of the testing will be subjected to a series of validation activities (A5) with the involvement of representatives from the direct target group, mainly ELT teachers.- Based on the conclusions of the validation exercises, a final release of the results will be provided towards the end of the project.- The use of the results and the integration of ELT challenges through Minecraft in the teaching process will be facilitated by a dedicated virtual space, the FOLLOW ME FOUNDRY, which will serve as the single point of entry to all FOLLOW ME results and offer support (synchronous and asynchronous) to the community of teachers that will use the results. The FOUNDRY will provide a feedback mechanism to connect the partners with the users so as to drive the corrective/perfective/evolutive maintenance of the results for as long as there is an interest.- A series of Multiplier Events (7) to generate awareness about the launch of the FOLLOW ME Collection- Roll out of the results<< Results >>IDENTIFIABLE TANGIBLE RESULTS - A set of methods for delivering Problem Based Learning (PBL) through Minecraft, specifically presented from the viewpoint of delivering ELT challenges- PBL specifications for Minecraft environments, accounting also for the different versions of the Minecraft platform (Education, Java, Bedrock, Pi)- A collection of PBL challenges for ELT- FOLLOW ME Handbook providing a practitioners approach to ELT in the Minecraft environment- The FOLLOW ME Minecraft World, enriched with resource packs and mods, used by the delivered ELT challenges which are part of the FOLLOW ME game mission- Instructional material and guides for teachers and parents to reap the benefits of the FOLLOW ME Minecraft World- A virtual space (FOLLOW ME FOUNDRY) serving as single point of entry to all results and providing resources and information for their use, as well as synchronous and asynchronous support infrastructure (contact form, email online chat, ticketing application, video conferencing). The FOUNDRY space will also facilitate a feedback loop between the teaching community and the partners with a view to drive the corrective/perfective/evolutive maintenance of the results and thus their sustainability.- A certification scheme for the recognition of the knowledge and skills acquired through the successful completion of the FOLLOW ME mission.The main outcome will be an increase in the use of digital learning spaces for delivering ELT learning experiences to children and in particular in the use of Minecraft as a delivery environment for ELT.Outcomes for English language teachers comprise:- Ability to utilise gamified activities for their students to practice communication skills in the English language- Understanding of how to enhance students critical thinking skills- Gamification skills for engaging students in problem-solving with curiosity and perseveranceApart from the direct benefits that are related to the improvement of the target language, the increase of attention span and the general pleasure they will experience, students are to develop further skills such as sharper critical thought, improved decision making, coordination and better behavior as recent study by the Australian Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology indicated that gamification in the classroom is rather helpful for disruptive students suffering from ADHD.If the project manages to build a strong, big community of adopters by mobilising a critical mass of adopters through the FOUNDRY, then the objectives will be achieved and the results will be sustained over time leading to further use of Minecraft as an environment for delivering ELT experiences to learners.