The StepTogether project won the European Language Label 2011

As the official site introduces, the European Language Label (ELL) is an award encouraging new initiatives in the field of teaching and learning languages, the rewarding of new techniques in language teaching, and spreading the knowledge of languages’ existence, thereby promoting good practice.

Every year, the ELL is awarded annually or biannually to the most innovative language learning project in each country participating in the scheme. By supporting these projects, at a local and national level, the ELL seeks to raise the standards of language teaching cross Europe. The label can also be awarded to the indiviual having made the most progress in foreign language learning, and the best language teacher.
You can find more detailed information about the European Language Label here: http://www.tpf.hu/pages/content/index.php?page_id=641 , http://ec.europa.eu/education/language/label/label_public/index.cfm?fuseaction=project_award&award_id=8558

The “Step Together” project aims to build Hungarian as a second language-competencies of migrant children from third countries, to facilitate the inclusion of these children in Hungarian public education, by making them stepping ahead together with their dominant group peers. A content based language teaching material was developed by our team to answer the challenges of the growing number of migrant children in Hungarian schools. These children are often excluded from the classroom activities due to their limited language competencies, and their inclusion requires huge efforts and extra work from their teachers. These books help teachers to offer suitable learning material and build adequate expectations, for improving student’s motivation and reducing dropout rates. On the long run these students will be able to enter secondary education and labour market easier. This content based teaching material is based on four areas the National Core Curriculum (NAT) and primary goal is to build language competencies trough learning content that follows topics of the class curriculum, throughout the whole school year. It also focuses on building core competencies defined by the NAT, and is responsive to the needs of migrant children. A novelty of the language teaching material that it does not require special language teaching skills, teachers can easily use it without any training in teaching Hungarian as a second language. The parts of the teaching material are: ( 1) grammar and syntax matrix (compatible with the NAT), (2) lexical matrix structuring the vocabulary of Hungarian linguistics, literature, mathematics and nature, (3) language books harmonized with the following subjects: Hungarian linguistics, literature, mathematics and nature and a manual for teachers. The project also involved the (4) trial of the material in schools and its research based evaluation.