This year, a new European partnership decided to embark on a 2+ year-long journey of creating a new project: SIMPL4ALL. As you may know, we noticed that today’s society, especially the education system, is in turmoil. The system no longer fits the needs of the pupils.
The SIMPL4ALL project is meant to respond to the needs of young people, between 14 and 21 years old, with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages, which prevent their full personal and professional fullfilment. In order to do that, it will also respond to the needs of their staff and people involved in training and socio-educational activities.
How did SIMPL4ALL start?
SIMPL4ALL project is designed as a way to enhance the VET system (Vocational and Education Training) thanks to the construction of materials tailored to the needs of all users. This involves quick guides dedicated to young people in difficult or disadvantaged conditions, and also the creation of Video Modeling on professions and trades.
Why SIMPL4ALL?
Indeed, The VET system is often perceived as a last resort, or “second chance” for students who failed in mainstream education while it really is simply another format, another method of learning.
The idea is thus to transform VET from this “second chance” into a place that would offer opportunities for all. The project gives very special attention to the diversity of learning needs and contexts, with the construction of personalized and individualized materials.
What is the goal?
The idea is thus on one hand, to enhance and make the VET system more attractive through different ways: by upskilling the teaching and support staff thanks to the use of more participatory methods and the enhancement of “learning mediators”. But also, by stimulating the use of digital tools, through open, accessible, and inclusive “user-centred” resources, thus enhancing the potential of technologies for teaching/learning. And finally, by promoting networking, both locally and internationally, through the sharing and exchange of techniques and best practices, to face educational challenges and the digital transition.
On the other hand, the idea is to focus on the target group of 14 – 21-year-olds and to improve their integration into society by adapting the digital skills and inclusive teaching methodologies and reducing obstacles to inclusion in the social and professional context.
SIMPL4ALL intends to help reduce the obstacles that prevent people from contributing with their resources and abilities to social life, in different contexts: school, vocational training, labour market, peer group. But also, to enhance and promote diversity, to present diversity as something beneficial rather than as an obstacle.
As we said above, different needs and learning contexts require personalized and individualized tools. Therefore, instead of focusing on the product itself, the learning mediators’ training focuses on the use of simplified language in inclusive teaching/learning, as a METHOD which is easier to adapt to different contexts and learner’s characteristics.
Indeed, information and communication are absolutely essential skills in modern society. Most of the structure of daily life is revolving around language-based information, including especially complicated language when confronted to important steps of life. Language-based information permeates the daily life of any given individual, be it the access to worldwide information in the form of the internet, but also, television, books, newspapers, magazines, advertisement, product packaging, user guides, and simple face-to-face interactions even. While this information is in practicality widely accessible, the content of the information itself may not be as accessible to all users. People with SLDs for example, with cognitive disabilities, may find decrypting written or spoken information very challenging in their daily life and responding in kind even more complicated. Some of the “formats” or support materials can be difficult to use, such as digital devices (some phones or computers) needing minute manipulations and precision skills to use. That is also true for the elderly, who are not always up to date with the use of new technologies. Another aspect to take in consideration is the complicated jargon used for specific fields, such as legal or medical matters.
Proper access to information and ability to understand and respond to it properly is essential to fully integrate society as an active member. The simplification of language is beneficial for a vast array of population profiles: elderly, immigrants, children, people with cognitive disabilities, etc.
In this project, we intend to explore different modalities of simplified languages in order to apply its methodology to the VET system and make learning more accessible to all target groups.
SIMPL4ALL Project Resources
In order to achieve our objectives, we intend to create several tools that will be freely available on our website:
- 1 – A simplified language instruction manual
- 2 – A simpl4all pedagogical toolkit
- 3 – A pedagogical mediation 4all-instructions for use (with quick guides in annex)
- 4 – A VET video modeling 4all
Stay tuned for more news on our SIMPL4ALL project!