Designed by the Council of Europe’s Language Policy Unit “Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants, LIAM”  –  Richard Rossner’s  “Providers of courses for adult migrants self-assessment handbook” (“Guida all’autovalutazione per enti erogatori di corsi per migranti adulti”) was originally derived from an Eaquals checklist relating to an international accreditation scheme for general foreign language education.

The Handbook has been designed to help providers of language and other courses for adult migrants to review the quality of all aspects of their work. National authorities responsible for overseeing the provision of courses for adult migrants may also find it a useful reference document when setting up courses, reviewing quality guidelines, carrying out quality control or developing guidelines on quality assurance for providers.

Aims of the Handbook:

The aim of the handbook is to help institutions and authorities to answer the following questions:

• What is the value of institutional self-assessment, what does it involve, and how can it best be managed?
• According to your collective assessment of the provision against the criteria and indicators in the Handbook, are there areas within the provision that need improvement? If so, which are they, and what improvements are needed?
• What areas can be pointed to as areas of excellence?
• How can you use institutional self-assessment to help plan training and development and contribute to the overall improvement of your institution for the benefit of migrants and national stakeholders?

Handbook’s sections:

It includes the following elements:

• a self-assessment checklist
• suggested self-assessment activities
• an appendix containing a glossary of terms.

The Council of Europe’s Language Policy Unit (Education Policy Division/Education Department Directorate of Democratic Citizenship and Participation – DG II) and Initiatives and Studies on Multiethnicity Foundation – ISMU have agreed to sign a co-operation Agreement.

Within the agreement

• The translation and adaptation into Italian of the “Providers of courses for adult migrants self-assessment handbook” has been supplied;
• A workshop with Richard Rossner as presenter has been organized on 7^th November 2014 to introduce the Handbook to teachers and providers of Italian language classes for migrants. The meeting was held in Milan, within the 2014 International Metropolis Conference;
• A piloting of the Handbook is currently on stage among a sample of 10 national schools of Italian as a second language for migrants;
• The Language Policy Unit appointed Costanza Bargellini and Silvana Cantù as supervisors of the Italian piloting and dissemination of the Handbook

For information:

Costanza Bargellini
Silvana Cantu

See also The European Language Portfolio