Multilingual Early Language Transmission (MELT) - Mercator ...

1.2.4 Expert seminars and conferences
On 23 July, 2009, in Dublin all partners gathered for the first time at a pre-project meeting to
congratulate each other on the successful application and to discuss organisational matters.
In a period of two years (2009-2010) four expert seminars were held in the regions:
Aberystwyth, Wales – 8/9th October 2009; Tarbes (Occitania), Brittany – 18 November 2009;
Leeuwarden, Fryslân – 14-16 April 2010 and Helsinki, Finland– 13 December 2010.
These seminars gave the opportunity to meet all partners face to face for in-depth
discussions on the content and expected results of the project. During these discussions
project goals were made concrete and new targets were set at the different meetings.
Besides, different experts on the pre-school age group were invited to speak, to report
research results and to give their views based on wide experience. A closing conference will
take place in Brussels in October 2011. At this final conference, all products and results of
the MELT project are presented, including this paper. See appendix D for the program of the
final conference.
1.2.5 PR and communication
During the MELT project several PR and communication products has been developed:
- Eight hundred copies of the bilingual project flyers: see appendix B for the Welsh-English,
Swedish-Finnish, Frisian-Dutch, and Breton-Frensch version.
- The website www.meltproject.eu, where the different versions of the parents’ pamphlets,
the toolkit, and this research paper will be published online: see also appendix C.
- Quarterly press releases, which are distributed to international, national, and regional
media (radio/ television/ journals/ websites etc.)
- A Facebook page, with more than 200 friends.
- Four MELT Newsletters, including news and updated information about the project.
- One scholarly article will be published.
The target audiences will include the project’s direct beneficiaries but also a broader group
of potential beneficiaries in the EU:
- 50 million speakers of CRSS and lesser used languages in the EU
- 5,000 practitioners and parents in NPLD associate member regions
- Policy-makers from NPLD associate member regions and other regions, national and EU
bodies.
1.2.6 MELT the scientific component
Within the MELT project, there is a scientific component that comprises two deliverables: a
scientific article on the results of the project and this research paper. The scientific article
will look at the outcomes of the incubator phase in which the Guide is tested at the
participating pre-schools in the four regions. The research paper will have a more theoretical
approach. This research paper presents theoretical backgrounds and practical descriptions of
good practices of multilingual early language learning and transmission to children aged 0- 4
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