BILINGUAL AND BICULTURAL OUTLOOK: Blended Multilingual Learning in Preschool Age.

"Education begins with language" Following the new European Commission report “Education begins with language” (June 2020) which seeks to support the implementation of the Recommendation of the Council of the European Union (EU) on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages, the main focus of BABO project will be the teaching of a second language in preschool age in an innovative

The main focus of BABO project was the teaching of a second language in preschool age in an innovative way offering ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) educators and families new educational methodologies and digital resources. The consortium decided to apply for this project for three main reasons: 1. LACK OF QUALITY DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN (ECEC) 2. LACK OF INNOVATION IN ECEC While primary, secondary and higher education have moved forward in digital education and educational innovation, preschool education have been offering the same education for decades and, indded, many ECEC educators refuse digital education or new methodologies in their classrooms. Th ECEC system have been traditionally considered “care” instead of “education” in many European countries. Projects like Babo will help to identify preschool education as education. 3. NEED OF A HIGH QUALITY AND ADAPTED MULTILINGUAL EDUCAITON IN THE EUROPEAN ECEC SYSTEM

The main activities carried out during the project were MANAGEMENT AND COORDINATION. The management and coordination guarantee the achievement of all project objectives and has kept the partners active and cotinuosly thinking in the project. Transnational meetings, online meetings, Working groups meetings (WG), Learning, Training and Teaching Activity (LTTA), piloting of the first version of the Project Results (PR), questionnaires, multiplier events and other dissemination activities... All these activities have been carried out during the project for getting the best project results. Having a big partnership with nine partners from five different countries is always a challenge for coordination, but because everything was well structured since the beginning of the project it has been easy to coordinate. All activities were planned since the beginning of the project and the projectreports, transnational meetings and questionnaires helped the coordinator and the partners to get a constant feedback about the situations of the project and the project results.

The consortium has developed four connected Project Results (PR) that will work as an “Educational pack” for promoting the learning of languages in preschool age. These Project Results are: PR1. Multiple Intelligences for Multilingual Education in Preschool Age. The PR1 is a pedagogical guide for connecting the main intelligences of the children in preschool age with the learning of a second language. In addition to this project result, we have created two other guides with activities for children 2-3 years and 3-6 years. The children in preschool age have a lot of capacities for learning a second language but not all the resources are suitable for all the children because not all of them are interested in the same ways of educating. This project result want to train the staff working in the ECEC in the Multiple Intelligences theory for better adapt the education to the main capacities of each child and to offer resources for a second language acquisition adapted to the different intelligences. PR2. GAMIFICATION: Multilingual Educational Games in Preschool Age ‘Gamification’ in education is about increasing student engagement and learning by including game-like elements in learning. We have developed 11 board games and 7 digital games with vocabulary for learning a second language connected with the educative program (colours, numbers, shapes...) for preschool children. PR3. BABO Multilingual Educational Cartoons "Babo the Dragon" Educational cartoons are a great resource adapted to the preschool age for teaching the children a second language. We have created 10 episodes for teaching children in preschool age vocabulary in a second language. These cartoons are so easy to understand and follow the educative curriculum proposed by the educational partners. PR4. BABO APP / Multilingual Educational game. This APP educational game is part of the multilingual educational pack we want have developed for helping ECEC educators and parents with the multilingual education of children in preschool age. Again, this game is connected with the vocabulary learned in all the educational resources and with the educational curriculum. You can find all these project results in the website of the project ( https://baboproject.com ).