1. Die Hertha Firnberg Schulen in Wien bieten als höhere Lehranstalt praktisch ausgerichtete Ausbildung in Wirtschaft und Tourismus an. Wichtig ist der Erwerbs von mehreren Sprachen (bis zu drei Fremdsprachen). Die Ausbildung ist teilweise bilingual. Mit dem Lehrplan unterstützt die Schule die Mehrsprachigkeit und das Erlernen interkultureller Kompetenzen. Die Zusammenarbeit mit PlurCur soll die Hertha Firnberg Schulen in ihren Bemühungen die Mehrsprachigkeit zu unterstützen stärken.

2. PlurCur Hertha Firnberg Schulen für Wirtschaft und Tourismus Vienna Hajnalka Berényi-Kiss

3. SCHOOL Hertha-Firnberg school offers educational courses in business & tourism Focus on applied training Emphasis on gender equality and multilingualism – students learn on average three modern languages Courses are often bilingual The school curriculum supports plurilingualism and intercultural competencies

4. PROJECT OVERVIEW Multilingual awareness and empowerment Interactive workshop via Moodle Online stations with various tasks, video links and exercises with flexible structure Different learning styles are considered

5. TARGET GROUP & CONTEXT Three groups of students from third year Working language: English PlurCur workshop was delivered during project week at the end of May as part of an English course

6. PROJECT’S AIMS (students) Awareness of one’s own languages Awareness of various languages in one’s environment Building confidence in using and developing one’s own languages and other modern languages Increase motivation to use other modern languages Use one’s own languages in order to comprehend others

7. PROJECT’S AIMS (staff) Raise awareness about the various languages that students can use Demonstrate the benefits of plurilingualism Use the students’ plurilingualism as a tool in language courses Be able to design new teaching material including the aspect of multilingualism

8. Questionnaires before and after the interactive workshop Overall de-briefing session after the workshop – positive feedback by participants However the students did not receive any grades for their participation in the workshop INDICATORS OF SUCCESS

9. How can the awareness and the acceptance of the plurilingual background of the students contribute to a more successful teaching and learning environment? What could be a possible link between the two aspects above? RESEARCH

10. PROJECT’s STATIONS Language portraits - students are asked to colour their own language portrait Language portfolio – students are asked to self-evaluate their languages skills (CEFR scale) Link to the “Great Language Game” – students are asked to guess as many languages as they can Link to “TEDed” about how languages evolve and linguistic diversity

11. PROJECT’s STATIONS The language tree link – students are given information on the similarities in certain language families Link to the “Multilingual language quiz of the European Commission” – students are asked to complete the quiz in any of their languages that they understand Link to the “Goethe-Institut: Die Stadt der Sprachen” – students are asked to explore how many languages there are in the world

12. PROJECT’s STATIONS Link to the “Language quiz about Europe” – students can research new facts about the existing languages in Europe Online link to the “Turkish for beginners” – students are asked to learn a few Turkish expressions and include these in their language portfolios Online links about Finnish and Irish – students are asked to follow these links and discover new information about lesser know languages

13. PROJECT’s STATIONS Students are asked to compare texts in different languages and find similarities Online link to “European Day of Languages” – students are asked to match the language with its country Students are instructed to go to a multilingual poem forum and write a poem using different languages Awareness of English – students guess the origin of the English accents that they listen to via an online link on the “sound familiar” website

14. PROJECT’s STATIONS As a final task students are asked to focus on a multilingual reflection: Students are asked to write a text in which they describe their experience of the workshop; how much did they learn, what was the most interesting part, how do they feel about their plurilingualism; etc.

15. PROJECT’s FUTURE The PlurCur workshop will be used at the next “Open Day” session at the school ADVANTAGES: Course is cost cutting and can be recycled DISADVATAGES: Difficult to timetable due to the mixture of different class groups

16. Schlagwörter: Mehrsprachigkeit; Gesamtsprachencurriculum; Berufsbildende höhere Schule Sekundarstufe II; Interaktives Online-Projektmodul; Lernstationen; Sprachenbewusstsein; Lernportfolio