IMUN - An Erasmus Intensive Programme within the EUDORA Programme

Mother tongue didactics is in the process of changing within the European Union. Besides that the concrete working programme of the European Council and the European Commission with regard to the development of education detect new challenges within mother tongue didactics (see PISA – reading competencies as key qualification). Therefore high qualified (teaching and researching) staff at universities is required.

Objectives

The Intensive Programme IMUN is trying to contribute to this qualification deficit. According to the objectives within the ERASMUS programme a package of competencies within the partnership will be detected. IMUN is integrated in the “Joint European PhD Programme EUDORA” and academically recognised by the partnership. Students should receive the necessary assistance within a multinational learning and problem-solving group in order to work on their comparative researches for their doctoral or master thesis. Instructors of universities should exchange, acquire or broaden their competencies, which they need for an efficient realisation of corresponding seminars or lectures at their “home” universities. Within a European study setting existing and remarkable approaches of these issues should contribute to a mutual expansion of perspectives. The realisation of the above objectives represents a considerable European surplus value. This programme will be integrated within the regular study programme of the participating universities and require appropriate preparation and evaluation.

Topics

The following thematic areas may be worked out: - language policies of the European Commission and chosen European countries in a comparative analysis - curricula of Higher Education Institutions with regard to mother tongue didactics and curricula in schools referring to mother tongue education - multilinguism in Europe - innovative approaches of mother tongue didactics - computer assisted language didactics - the relevance of children literature for the development of European, national and regional identities - dimensions of reading competencies of children and students and its relevance for innovative mother tongue didactics - mother tongue- and foreign language didactics: mutuality – differences – mutual actions - (research) methods of a comparative mother tongue research - individual or group related supervision for students’ works

The intensive programme

The working days within this intensive programme may be described as follows: Four slots a day, each representing a workload of 1.5 hours At least one additional slot, also representing a workload of 1.5 hours for the work in “special interest groups” or individual counselling of research and development work of students The workshops should offer profound discussion of the different presentation for lecturers and students. Furthermore each participating student will have the opportunity to publish his/her presentation.

Guiding principles of an educational-didactic approach are

• Constructivist learning theories - Collaborative problem-solving and - Active learning within multinational learning and problem-solving groups Up to 7.5 EC points may be awarded to the student for the participation, presentation and its publication

Dates and Place of this IP

The intensive programme will take place in beautiful Jurmela, Latvia from Sunday, 20th August –Friday, 1st September 06 Travel, accommodation and subsistence costs will be covered by EU funding and other sources

Coordinating institution: State College of Teacher Education in Linz, Austria: Siegfried Kiefer, Siegfried.kiefer@phlinz.at, +43 664 4446438 Local coordinator: Dainuvite Bluma, dainuvite.bluma@lu.lv or Dbluma@eduinf.lu.lv

Participating institutions

Tallinn Pedagogical University, Estonia (Martin Ehala, ehala@tpu.ee)

University of Helsinki, Finland (Kari Sallamaa,kari.sallamaa@oulu.fi)

Latvian University, Latvia (Ilze Ivanova,ilze.ivanova@lu.lv)

University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (Milena Blazic,Milena.blazic@guest.arnes.si)

Umea University, Sweden (Berit Lundgren, berit.lundgren@educ.umu.se)

Sheffield Hallam University, UK (Brian Hudson, B.G.Hudson@shu.ac.uk)

Akdeniz University, Turkey (Binnur Genc Ilter, bgilter@akdeniz.edu.tr)

Up to four students of each university and one lecturer may participate in this programme