Linguistic and cultural diversity are at risk. It is estimated that nearly half of the world’s approximately 6,000 languages could die out by the end of the century, with 96 percent of these languages spoken by a mere four percent of the world’s population.
A vernacular language is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, region or country that is more the language of ordinary speech than formal writing. Every day, a dozen of these vernacular languages disappear. This is alarming, because language plays a vital role in development, in ensuring cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, and is also critical in strengthening cooperation, building inclusive knowledge societies, preserving cultural heritage and providing quality education for all.
Unfortunately, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), especially Internet, have so far contributed to the trend towards reduced linguistic diversity, although international organizations such as UNESCO and the Broadband Commission for Digital Development regularly advocate the need for a greater presence of content in local languages. More...

This is just a piece of reflexion that started to emerge in our project team. Alannah’s Fitzerald blog post on “Open Linguistic Support in the Context of Open CourseWare and MOOCs“ has been very helpful. She writes:
When it comes to the development of open linguistic support for the world of Open CourseWare and MOOCs, we are still very much educating in beta with language learning and translation technologies. OER14 and the OCWC 2014 Open CourseWare Consortium Global Conference): Open Education for a Multicultural World are fast approaching and this year at the OCWC in Slovenia the focus is very much on multiculturalism with the following presentations addressing multilingualism in OpenCourseWare. More...

Open Educational Resources (OER) in less used languages: a state of the art report - July 2014
This report presents the results of an in-depth investigation and analysis of Open Educational Resources (OER) in 23 languages, including the target languages of the LangOER consortium: Dutch, Frisian, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish. Target languages have also been extended to more European languages, regional and minority languages (RML) such as: Catalan, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latgalian, Norwegian, Romanian and Welsh. The investigation also included a more global overview by using languages such as English, French, and German for reference.
The scope of this report is to present the state of the art of OER in less used languages, and to frame some current features of relevance for further development.
The study will be translated in several languages (Dutch, Frisian, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish) by early September.

• Open Educational Resources (OER) in less used languages: a state of the art report (download as pdf)
• Annex to the study (download as pdf). More...

The Work Packages consist of the following activities:

WP1: Project Management

WP2: State-of-the art

WP3: International challenges that less used languages face

WP4: Teaching training

WP5: Regional and Minority languages

WP6: Challenges for language learning

WP7: Maintreaming in European policies

WP8: Dissemination

WP9: Quality assurance. More...

The LangOER project will address this under-explored topic by bringing together the worlds of Open Education and less used languages (including Regional and Minority Languages-RML) in a fruitful and long term dialogue. LangOER aims to contribute to the promotion of learning and teaching of less used European languages by linking them to the global challenges of Open Education. This will be achieved by awareness raising and capacity building activities (including exchange of good practice, training, expert consultations, discussions and dissemination activities) for the two main target groups, policy makers and educators in less used languages in Europe.
The project aims to “strengthen the role of languages in improving employability and competitiveness”, which is one of the backbones of the multilingualism policy. Read why OERs matter for less used languages.

The aims of the project are as follows:

• Raise awareness of OER, demonstrate best practice and valorise multilingual and interactive resources on a European level
• Give the floor to less used and Regional/Minority languages allowing their needs to be heard on the international scene where OER experts meet and reflect.
• Reach and support policy makers seeking to overcome barriers for OER uptake through consultation mechanisms.
• Fuel activity of well-established and successful pan-European instruments, such as the big OER metadata repository Language Resources Exchange and the policy making channel Observatory, both run by the European Schoolnet (P3). Sharing LangOER materials through the former and creating a public, shareable Thematic Dossier on the latter will expand and multiply the impact of LangOER project results.

• Foster creation and uptake of OER through awareness raising activities, delivery of training materials, provision of training on OER/OEP to at least 200 European educators and above all by making OEP a reality through implementation in real teaching contexts.
• Boost the multilingual and interactive dimension of OER (to combat the primarily monolingual and static current picture of OER) through a teacher-as-developer guided practice.
• Embrace educators and stakeholders of Regional and Minority Languages in remotely located areas to gain knowledge, develop skills and exchange good practice.
• Address language learning as a learning subject requiring specific attention due to two particular characteristics (speaking skills and teacher feedback) that may not be fully tackled by OER.

• Offer an up-to-date picture of languages in which OER exist, through an in-depth desktop research in 17 European countries.
• Map OER initiatives emphasizing the linguistic and cultural variety in Europe.
• Foster informal learning and community learning practice through moderated, sustained discussions through a social networking platform.
• Adopt a cross-sectoral and cross-linguistic approach to OER/OEP to combat fragmentation of efforts and to enhance the transferability of the approach and the materials to new pedagogical contexts/language contexts.

Read more about Work Packages.
Find out more in our Flyer.
Download your own LangOER bookmark.
Meet our Advisory Board. More...

Open Educational Resources (OER) for less used languages in an increasingly digital everyday culture
What is the future for less used languages online? How can online resources be an effective tool to preserve less used languages? This is the topic that will be discussed in the Webinar Open Educational Resources (OER) for less used languages in an increasingly digital everyday culture: What are the challenges and how will we tackle them?

Time: 19 September 14:00-15:00 (Central European Time)

Sign up here for free (video conference): http://tiny.cc./September19

Download the poster (pdf)

What will you learn from this webinar?

• The status of OER in less used languages in Europe
• Some current strategic projects working going on that deal with OER
• How OER can be used as a resource in teaching and learning of languages

Taking part in a webinar? Have a look at how it works: http://oersverige.se/taking-part-in-a-webinar. More...