New handbook to support linguistic inclusion of migrants

Posted on: 01 December 2022

The Guide for the Linguistic Inclusion of Migrants is designed to be a practical handbook which gives readers a potted account of relevant research in areas relevant to language teaching, including applied linguistics, education and psychology. It is a multilingual publication, available in six different European languages. Topics covered include literacy, the design and choice of teaching materials, language and human rights, teacher training, and language teaching for social inclusion.

The guide is an outcome of the INCLUDEED project, co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme. Overall, the projects aims to support the integration of migrants through language teaching materials which respond to learners’ language needs in a positive and self-sustaining way.

As well as the publication of this multilingual guide, the INCLUDEED team are working on a new free multilingual course for migrants which will be available on YouTube, entitled A Step Forward. Universities involved in the INCLUDEED project: University of Salamanca, Spain; University of Poitiers, France; Heidelberg University, Germany; Coimbra University, Portugal and University of Bologna, Italy

Speaking about the new publication, Professor Lorna Carson, INCLUDEED team lead at Trinity and co-author of the handbook, said:

“We are really pleased to see the publication of this free multilingual resource to support organisations and individuals, especially volunteers, who are involved in teaching English to migrants from many different backgrounds in Ireland. It is more important than ever that such useful and research-informed information such as this gets into the hands of those who are committed to empowering refugees and asylum-seekers through language.”

Trinity staff involved in the project are Lorna Carson (Lead), Professor Sarah Sheridan; Professor Kathleen McTiernan; Ms Caitríona O’ Brien; and Ms Yomna Mohamed Hassan Ahmed El-Hossary.

The guide contains an introduction by Vice-President of the European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles. He writes: “Europe has a calling as a land of welcome. The EU’s international relations and foreign, security and defence policies are conceived as exercises in which dialogue with other regions of the world is central. Dialogue, the use of words, knowledge of each other’s languages and cultures are undoubtedly fundamental tools for understanding between peoples and the prevention and resolution of conflicts.”

The Guide for the Linguistic Inclusion of Migrants is published by the University of Salamanca Press under a Creative Commons license and is available for free download in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Italian at the following URL: https://includeed.usal.es/intellectual-outputs/ 

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