IFMIK
Institut für die Förderung von Mehrsprachigkeit,
interkulturellen Kompetenzen und Gleichbehandlung in Vienna / Austria
Institut für die Förderung von Mehrsprachigkeit,
interkulturellen Kompetenzen und Gleichbehandlung stands for Institute for
promoting multilingualism, intercultural competency and equality.
Our institute was founded in December 2009.
We are a not-for-profit association located in
the 14th distict of Vienna.
The institute was founded by Educationalists
from pre-, primary- & secondary schools, university & adult education
sectors.
The reason why we founded our institute is to
promote Multilingualism – to develop writing and reading competences amongst
migrants,intercultural competency - so that migrant especially children
stay in touch with their original culture and also learn to deal with their new
social environment, and
equal opportunities for woman and men. To do
this, we launch and carry out a number of activities.
These include:
- Train the trainer seminars + workshops
- Language courses
- Training & support for migrants seeking employment
- Activities to promote mother-tongues and cultural heritage
- Lectures, social get-togethers, events
- Cooperation &
- support for scientific projects
So far we have held
•
An international Train the trainer workshop,
•
And published a School magazine for Hungarian School Association.
•
At the moment we are working on a
•
Project for developing new language training courses for migrants and
•
Giving Intercultural activity classes in Hungarian and German and
•
We are partners in three Grundtvig projects.
The train the trainer workshop was held in March
2010.
The purpose of the workshop was to exchange
experiences on Methods & didactics for teaching minority languages (as a
mother tongue).
We had 32 international participants from
5 European countries.
The workshop was very successful: We
developed much new teaching material and new methods.
An important issue was also the financing of
courses and activities through the EU,/ European Commission.
At the beginning of this Year we were asked to
create a school magazine for the Hungarian School Association in Vienna.
The purpose of this magazine, which is published
in Hungarian, is to provide Information for families with Hungarian background.
We are responsible for the contents, the
layout and the printing.
We also always ask for contributions from the
children of the school, which gives them a chance to develop their writing
skills and practice Hungarian.
The first issue came out in March this year, and
there are 4 issues per year.
In September 2010 we were asked to develop new
language courses for migrants.
In this project we developed the curricula for
teaching German as a foreign language.
The courses will be attended by migrants living
in Austria.
Our intercultural activity classes:
Here we conduct Language learning paired with
activities to promote local and minority cultures.
The activities include thematic circles, where
participants can practice speaking about different topics and issues. This way
they can expand their vocabulary on a variety of subjects, which is important,
because at home often only domestic issues are discussed.
In the activity classes we cultivate
Hungarian as a mother tongue and as a foreign
language as well as
German as a foreign language
Currently our institute is taking part in 3
Grundtvig partnerships.
The one is: No more tears
The other is called: Voice of the learner
The 3. is: EU-Treasure hunt
The Institute for promoting multilingualism,
intercultural competency and equality is still very young, but besides what we
are doing already, we have many plans for the future.
They include van expansion by opening
subsidiaries in all Austrian provinces and in future we also plan to provide
grants for studies/researches related to multilingualism.
