ESC: Favoriser l'apprentissage de la langue française par ...

As a non-governmental association of citizens, "Jules Verne" is a multicultural center, with focus on non-formal education, intercultural activities; youth exchange projects and artistic projects for children and young people. It also ensures the promotion of youth involvement in the local community, with special focus on the French and Serbian cultures and languages. We are proud to say that we are holders of the European quality language label for 2021 and 2022. The association is located in a family neighborhood of Novi Sad of almost 30,000 habitants. Our main target groups are children and young people, as well as youth workers and future teachers. 1) Our regular activities consist of: - Hosting activities for local and international volunteers (since 2007 we have hosted more than 80 international volunteers (ESC and SCI) and sent around 20 young people abroad). - Organizing the bilingual kindergarten (20 to 25 children from 3 to 7 years old) - Our kindergarten has been accredited by the Ministry of Education since 2015 and represents an alternative pedagogy where the child is at the center of education. Our pedagogy mainly revolves around observing the interest of the children and making it a priority. We set an environment allowing children to learn by exploring and doing things themselves; we let them be autonomous with their learning; give them enough freedom and space to be a responsible and empathic person within the group; and we promote the early learning of a foreign language. -Organizing French language classes for children, youth, and young adults (from 3 to 22 years old) aiming to teach them a foreign language through conversation workshops, creative workshops, games, theater, storytelling, dance, improving their IT competencies etc… They are separated into different groups (3 to 10 persons in the group) depending on their ages and language capacities. ·Organization of at least three youth exchanges (K1 action) for 50 young persons in each activity; usually during one year we host one project and we participate as a sending partner in two projects (sometimes more). - Organizing each year the European Language promotion and the European Day of Languages held on the 26th of September, an event that: raise awareness of the broad variety of languages in Europe promote cultural and linguistic diversity encourage people of all ages to learn languages (easier to connect with people, to find a job and to help business growth) - Collaboration with different associations in Europe and in other regions in order to participate in different Erasmus+ programs – mobility of youth leader and teachers (trainings, job shadowing) ·Collaborating with local organizations such as OPENS and NVS on the promotion of youth mobility, activism, non-formal education for youth or youth workers. To ensure the promotion, we set up info points about ESC projects, training, conferences, meetings, and take part in resource café events. ·Cooperation with kindergartens, elementary and secondary schools and associations on the topic of teachers’ qualification (organization of trainings and participation on conferences around the storytelling, use of games in learning a foreign language, project learning environment, developing digital and IT competences and about exploring nature with children) ·Developing the e-material (booklet) in order to improve the quality work of teachers, youth workers and volunteers (quality hosting procedure, education of the volunteer, digital competencies of the volunteers, online kit of activities with children) ·organizing local volunteering - since January 2007, we have been hosting 6 locals volunteers each year. 2) Occasional activities Every three years, we organize a festival called "Jules Vernes’ illuminations", an international itinerant festival (in Serbia, in Belgium, France etc.) of light, music and lanterns (created by a group of our youngsters in order to give to others young people from our suburb the motivation to have an impact on their daily life, to gather the youth, children and their families. · Organization of intercultural activities - intercultural dinners, dancing and musical evenings with traditional clothes, movies, and art. · Cooperation with the university in order to develop education in general: organization of internships for the students, development of the teachers and students’ abilities to use different methods of non-formal education in their work. In doing so, students can obtain extra points for their diploma. We would like to host the volunteers from September or January for 10-12 months. Future goals in next 6 years: create the festival of storytelling in our local community more activities in our suburb Jules Verne is accredited for volunteering projects on local and international level and has been accredited as an association of interest for the youth by the Ministry of Labor and the Serbian Ministry of Sport and Youth.