The overall aim of the HeriTalk project is to enhance the linguistic competences of adult learners by bringing them into contact with culturally tangible and intangible heritage and allowing them to participate in stimulating and communicative heritage activities.
Policy-makers in EU institutions and global organisations such as UNESCO promote both the protection of our cultural heritage and the use of heritage to enrich citizens' learning processes. Heritage education is therefore becoming increasingly well known in educational institutions and is already often programmed in the curriculum of youth education.
This project aims to demonstrate the added value of heritage experiences in language lessons for adult learners. The HeriTalk project aims to use well-chosen language lessons in a heritage context to create a collective experience that allows both learners and teachers to acquire not only knowledge, but also key competences such as cooperation, communicating in a foreign language, digital competences and cultural awareness. Within this project, experiencing heritage is the catalyst for personal learning and personal development.
The unique mix of language lessons and heritage experiences includes extramural benefits, it offers great potential for increasing learning motivation, for integrating digital tools and for achieving basic linguistic competences and leads to collaborations between educational institutions and other sectors.
With this in mind, 4 European partners decided to launch a project for language learning in a heritage context. We thus want to take up the challenge of inspiring and guiding learners to expand their language skills by learning and speaking about culturally tangible and intangible heritage.
The main objectives we want to achieve with this project:
Create innovative language practice opportunities through inspiring heritage activities for adult learners (new methodologies and teaching materials).
Enrich learners' language practice opportunities by having them learn at a heritage site.
Discover the possibilities of language learning outside school walls (professionalising teachers and motivating learners) and promote extramural learning.
Increase awareness of heritage: heritage encourages dialogue and challenges active citizenship.
With our heritage activities we want to offer optimal opportunities for cultural participation regardless of social status or cultural background and thus strengthen social cohesion.