What's ORALPHA?

Social policy is a fundamental pillar of the European Union, and as shown in the 2020 Plan are priority objectives: the reduction of poverty and social exclusion. According to the INE (2012) one of the most vulnerable groups who suffer social exclusion, is the immigrant and refugee population with a low level of the host language and reading skill. That is, illiteracy and lack of knowledge of the host language are direct causes of social exclusion and poverty.

The ORALPHA project has been conceived with the overall objective of promoting inclusion in illiterate immigrants and refugees whose mother tongue differs from the host language. Whereas learning the host language is a vital element for the citizen and social participation. Therefore a good development of the host language skills directly reduces social exclusion and poverty.

According to ALFIE report (Learning Partnership) the fields of education, research and policy in Europe have no formal means of reference to develop and maintain a strong and high quality education for illiterate immigrant population. Within existing problems in this regard, the ORALPHA project aims to solve that not all European countries have the possibility to train teachers in order to provide language training that youth and adult immigrants and refugees need. To do so, the project has established as specific goal, the improvement of the teaching practice of the host language in the basic skills (literacy and oral communication) to youth and adult immigrants and refugees.

For it is intended to achieve the following tangible results:

• To publish a theoretical and methodological manual of good practices as a guide at European level and be based on the global-constructivist approach, ie that combines teaching oral language with literacy, and fit the use of new technologies.
• To generate a motor training in language teaching and literacy to immigrants at European level through a portal on-line language teaching and literacy to immigrants.
• To provide training courses online through the portal.
• To record the process and its results in an audio-visual document.

ORALPHA is composed of six entities:

• PROBENS (Spain): Association for the Study and Promotion of Social Welfare
• ACEFIR (Spain): Catalan Association for Education, Training and Research linked to adult education.
• CER-M / UAB (Spain): Center Migration Studies and Research at the Autonomous University of Barcelona
• TEMPO LIBERO (Italy): Cooperative for social integration in the community
• WERKSTATT-Berufskolleg Unna (Germany): School vocational training for youth and adults at risk of social exclusion
• BOIE (Poland): specialist training of trainers in the social field and consulting for public policy design.

This project is a collaborative and participative methodological basis so also will be involved in the project: local authorities, teachers and students participating in language and literacy courses. In this way it ensures that the project caters to real needs. Through the development of activities, production of intellectual products, joint reflection and development of critical capacity, aims:

• To promote inclusion of immigrants and refugees illiterate through improving teaching practice in teaching the language host and literacy.
• To provide the fields of education, research and policy development in Europe of an effective reference framework for teaching host oral language and its literacy.
• To achieve a greater recognition of adults education, and specifically in the field of teach in host language and literacy that promotes the design of public policies in order to promote social inclusion and coexistence between citizens.
• To generate tools that help the design of public policies at the local level in order to reduce poverty, promote economic development and democratic participation.
• To start a transnational network of training and collaboration in the sharing of best practices that allows to reduce the number of illiterate immigrant and refugee population.

Through the reduction of social exclusion, more egalitarian societies are achieved. That is, improves societies and promotes coexistence in a democratic way.