What it is about
ShowMI: Helping migrants to demonstrate the value of their language skills
What is it about?
ShowMI is a European project funded through the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Programme which brings together partners from seven European countries: Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Poland UK and Switzerland. The project focuses on the language skills of people with a migrational background living in Europe. It aims to:
- Enable their language skills to become more visible
- Enable their language skills to be more effectively used in education and in the labour market
- Improve the perception and status of migrants within the host country by raising awareness of their linguistic competence.
Why is it needed?
People with migrational background are often defined using a deficit model; that is, as people unable to speak the predominant language of the host country. Whilst resources are usually directed towards enabling migrants to learn this language, little regard is taken of the migrants' existing linguistic competence. This means that both the individuals themselves and the host country do not make sufficient use of these skills and indeed, in many cases, effort and money are spent to enable other people to acquire these skills. Existing approaches to recording linguistic skills such as the European Language Portfolio do not adequately cover the linguistic skills of migrants as they begin to learn the language of the host country.
The impact of this deficit approach is twofold;
- Because their linguistic competence is ignored by the host country, the self-identity and self-esteem of migrants are negatively affected
- Business opportunities are missed through a failure by the host country to effectively harness the linguistic skills of migrants.
