Project title
Multilateral project Active Literacy: Competence and Understanding, Internally Naturalized
Funding code
ALCUIN
Start date
September 1, 2007
Expected Completion
2010-01-31
Description
Over the last years, there has been a decline in the reading skills of upper secondary school students, which is recognised among partner countries. Seeing this as an alarming change for the worse, the governments in Sweden, Italy and Lithuania have decided to take steps against the students' inability and unwillingness to read advanced literature. The overall objective of the project is to develop efficient methods for teachers to use in both mother-tongue and English upper secondary classes, general and vocational education, to extend and progress their reading practices, to make them competent and confident readers with lust to deal with advanced literature. By defining and developing new pedagogical methods, we want to give the teachers adequate tools to promote students reading skills helping them transform reading into knowledge, i.e. to help them go from decoding to understanding .In order to develop the teachers' professionalism we will design new pedagogical methods by making use of the collective resource of the partnership as a whole. Various enquiries and interviews will be undertaken among students. Teachers will write reports on the work in progress and the researchers at the universities will analyse the results, which will decide the development of new up-dated and effective pedagogical methods to be tested in the class-room. This way a manifold methods designed by the partnership will be tested in connection with a variety of literary texts and art forms, also ensuring the students' participation in the work in progress. During the work in progress a continuous interchange between all teachers and students will take place on the project's website. A virtual classroom will be established for the communication in writing among students. The website serves the main purpose of dissemination as it works as a public forum accessible for all persons interested in the project. In addition to the website, the project will be disseminated through local radio and TV broadcast, teachers' seminars, through workshops at all partner schools, libraries and teachers' training colleges, articles in professional journals and local papers. Evaluation of the project takes place on several levels. Teachers and students document their self-assessments through journals and reading logs, to be reported to the coordinating partner who writes a joint summary, which will be published on the website. The whole project will result in a teachers' guide, ready to use in the classroom, translated into all partners mother tongue, a CD-ROM, offering the practitioner new perspectives on teaching, which will meet with to day's demands and this way ensuring sustainability.