ISSA Project Receives Honor from EU

22 December 2008

ISSA is pleased to announce that its project, Effective teaching and learning for minority-language children in preschool, has been selected by the European Commission to be included in a brochure "Creativity and Innovation – best practice from EU programmes," which will be produced for the conference of the same name that will take place in Brussels from 2 to 3 March 2009. The brochure will also be used for other events that will be organized during the European Year of Creativity and Innovation.

From the 200 projects invited to compete to feature in this brochure, ISSA’s project was chosen by a panel of 10 independent experts as an example of best practice in the field of creativity and innovation, helping to illustrate how the EC Directorate General for Education and Culture supports this important subject which is at the heart of European Union policies.

The project, Effective teaching and learning for minority-language children in preschool, was implemented from 2004-2006, and was funded by the Comenius 2.1 mechanism. With partners Nadacia Skola Dakoran (Slovania), Hea Algus (Estonia), COSPE (Italy), and SARDES (Netherlands), ISSA developed a replicable teacher training module and learning materials appropriate to the needs of early learners from minority language communities, through greater inclusion of their mother tongue and home culture in the classroom, combined with effective learning of ‘state language’ as second language. Target Groups were preschool children from 5 to 7 years old, who were non-native language speakers, parents, and pre-school educators who had non-native language-speaking children in their classrooms. The materials developed and published as part of the project are now used widely throughout the ISSA network.

ISSA is thrilled and honored to receive this exceptional opportunity to bring the project to the attention of a wide audience of decision-makers, those responsible for human resources, entrepreneurs, representatives of educational bodies and cultural organizations.

For more information, please contact Eva Izsak at izsak@issa.hu.

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