ASTRA: Aiming for Sustainable Teaching and Recognition of All Languages

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Due to migration and mobility, Europe’s classrooms are becoming increasingly multilingual. While linguistic diversity is a valuable resource for education, it is often underutilized or even seen as a challenge in schools. Many migrant students face barriers to academic success due to a lack of language inclusion policies and teacher preparedness. Research shows that recognizing and valuing students’ home languages can enhance their self-confidence, engagement, and overall learning outcomes.

ASTRA enhances inclusive multilingual education by training 24 teachers and 6 school leaders from 6 schools in Croatia, France, and the Netherlands. Through peer learning, teacher training, and student focus groups, ASTRA promotes inclusive school policies and language-friendly environments, based on student voices. The project develops scalable digital resources, ensuring long-term impact. It strengthens cross-border collaboration and influences EU education policies on multilingualism.

  • ASTRA addresses this urgent need by equipping teachers and school leaders with the skills and knowledge to create inclusive, language-friendly schools through:
  • Training teachers on plurilingual education strategies to support multilingual learners.
  • Empowering school leaders to implement inclusive, language-friendly policies.
  • Centering student voices through focus groups that shape school-wide approaches.
  • Building cross-border networks of inclusive schools through peer learning activities.
  • Creating scalable resources, including a practical toolkit, podcasts, and lesson series.

ASTRA builds on the expertise and lessons learned from three successful European projects:

  • ALCOR (2021–2023) – Building Teacher–Parent Connections Through Digital Multilingual Learning.
  • AVIOR (2016–2019) – Developing Open Source Resources for Bilingual Education.

Duration of project: 01/10/2025 – 30/09/2028

Partners:

NEPC