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About

Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project about dialogic approaches in teacher education to support intercultural citizenship education in EA/FL through picturebook mediation.

ICETEMP is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project that brings together partners from across Europe to explore how picturebooks, dialogic pedagogies, and collaborative online learning can support intercultural citizenship education in foreign language teacher education. 

The overall project aim is to support the inclusion of intercultural citizenship education through picturebooks in the teaching and learning of English as an additional/ foreign language.

ICETEMP seeks to achieve this aim in two ways:

  • Dialogic approaches

    by supporting teacher educators to apply dialogic approaches when training pre-service teachers to confidently integrate picturebook mediation in their teaching repertoire.

  • Collaboration

    by training pre-service teachers in collaborative planning, implementation, and evaluation of such approaches. 

Objectives

The overall aim of ICETEMP is to strengthen the awareness and implementation of intercultural citizenship education in foreign language teaching and learning across Europe.

The project focuses particularly on pre-service education for primary and lower-secondary English language teachers. Through the mediation of picturebooks and the use of dialogic pedagogies, ICETEMP seeks to support teacher educators and student teachers in developing inclusive, participatory, and critically engaged approaches to language education.

Activities

The project implements a range of interconnected activities, including:

  • curriculum and concept mapping related to the project’s central themes;
  • professional development for teacher educators in dialogic pedagogies and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL);
  • the design and implementation of a prototype teacher education module focused on picturebook mediation;
  • collaborative online learning experiences for student teachers;
  • support for student teachers as they develop and trial picturebook mediation practices during school placements.

Impact

ICETEMP aims to contribute to teacher education and English language education through:

  • a transnational analysis of partner curricula and teacher education programmes in relation to intercultural citizenship education;
  • guidelines and resources for Higher Education Institutions;
  • collections of good practice examples related to the project themes;
  • a series of best-practice films and classroom examples;
  • a prototype teacher education module adaptable to different educational contexts;
  • a handbook to support teacher educators’ professional development;
  • picturebook mediation examples developed by student teachers;
  • publications and dissemination materials aimed at a range of educational stakeholders.

Read more about the project at Erasmus+

Why ICETEMP?

Across Europe, language education is increasingly expected to respond to complex social and global challenges, including migration, sustainability, diversity, social justice, and democratic participation. At the same time, teacher education programmes are being called upon to prepare future teachers who can foster intercultural understanding, critical reflection, and meaningful dialogue in increasingly multilingual and multicultural classrooms. ICETEMP was developed in response to these educational needs.

The project builds on the foundations established by the Erasmus+ ICEPELL project, which demonstrated the powerful role picturebooks can play in supporting intercultural citizenship education in early English language learning. ICEPELL highlighted how picturebooks can act as ‘vehicles for intercultural citizenship’ and provide opportunities for children to explore complex themes through discussion, empathy, imagination, and collaborative inquiry. However, the project also revealed the central importance of teacher mediation: picturebooks do not automatically generate intercultural or dialogic learning. Their potential depends on how teachers select, share, mediate, and discuss them with learners.

ICETEMP therefore extends and deepens this work by focusing specifically on teacher education and on the development of dialogic and multimodal approaches to picturebook mediation.

While research increasingly recognises the educational affordances of picturebooks, there remains a need to support student teachers and teacher educators in understanding how dialogue, questioning, embodied interaction, translanguaging, and collaborative meaning-making can shape children’s engagement with texts and with one another. ICETEMPis therefore not simply about using picturebooks in language education. It is about preparing future teachers to create inclusive, dialogic, and socially responsive learning environments in which children can engage critically, ethically, and creatively with stories, with global issues, and with others.

Why COIL?

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is a pedagogical approach in which educators and students from different countries work together online through shared curricular activities and collaborative projects. Educators co-design and co- acilitate learning experiences, while students collaborate across cultural, linguistic, and geographical boundaries using digital technologies. COIL therefore creates opportunities for international and intercultural learning within the curriculum itself, making global collaboration accessible to a wider range of students.

Within ICETEMP, COIL plays an important role in supporting intercultural citizenship education and dialogic teacher education. Student teachers from different countries collaborate online to explore picturebook mediation, discuss educational perspectives, and reflect together on intercultural and citizenship-related issues. Through synchronous and asynchronous interaction, they learn to negotiate meanings, work across differences, and co- onstruct pedagogical ideas in multilingual and multicultural learning environments.

COIL also supports the development of important professional competences for future teachers, including intercultural communication, digital collaboration, critical reflection, and collaborative problem-solving. By engaging with peers from different educational and cultural contexts, student teachers become more aware of how language, culture, communication, and educational practices are shaped by context and perspective.

Importantly, ICETEMP understands COIL not simply as the use of digital tools, but as a dialogic and collaborative pedagogical space.

The project draws particularly on approaches developed through UCOILD – Realizing COIL Projects, which emphasise co-creation, intercultural dialogue, and meaningful online collaboration as central elements of internationalised and inclusive higher education. COIL therefore provides ICETEMP participants with opportunities to engage in shared inquiry, collaborative meaning-making, and intercultural learning across borders.

Partners

Who are the partners?

ICETEMP is made up of a consortium of seven partners from six European countries – Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey with expertise in language learning and teaching, teacher education, international collaboration, intercultural and citizenship education, picturebooks in language education and curriculum and materials development.

Steering committtee

About NOVA

Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA) was founded in 1973 and is one of the two public Universities located in Lisbon. The university has nine schools and offers graduate, master’s and doctoral courses as well as postgraduate courses covering a comprehensive array of fields of knowledge.  With more than 19,000 students, 1,100 academics and 500 non-academic staff, NOVA has a consolidated experience within European programmes, such as Tempus, Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus, as well as being involved in cooperation with North American, African and Brazilian universities. Research at NOVA is undertaken in 41 Research and Development Units (R&D Units), with many research partnerships between NOVA and other national institutions. In 2018, over 75% of the R&D Units were evaluated as “Exceptional”, “Excellent” or “Very Good”.

About the faculty

The Social and Human Science Faculty (FCSH) at NOVA has a Modern Languages, Cultures and Literatures (MLCL) department with twenty years’ experience in language teacher education, offering MA courses in Foreign Language Education (English, French, Spanish and German). Within its doctoral programme there is a course in ‘Language Teaching – Multilingualism and Global Citizenship Education’. 

The Centre for English, Translation, and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS), a research centre of excellence, is associated with the MLCL department and has a research area in Teacher Education and Applied Language Studies (TEALS) with two research strands which support and contribute to the integration of language education and intercultural citizenship education. Sandie Mourão coordinated the Erasmus+ project ICEPELL – intercultural Citizenship through Picturebooks in early English Language Learning – which the ICETEMP project is developing.

Steering committee

  • Lone Krogsgaard Svarstad, associate lecturer
  • Karoline Emilie Søgaard, associate lecturer

About UCC (KP)

University College Copenhagen (KP) is a public higher education institution and the largest university college in Denmark, with approx. 20,000 students and 2,000 staff. KP offers 21 bachelor programmes, academy profession degrees, postgraduate education, and conducts applied research and development within the welfare sector, including teacher education, social education, and nursing.

KP holds an Erasmus University Charter and has extensive experience in Erasmus+ projects, staff/student mobility, and international partnerships, promoting intercultural learning and flexible education pathways.

About the faculty

KP has, for several years, focused on approaches which support internationalization of the curriculum. KP led the KA2 Erasmus+ UCOILD project which developed hands-on materials for COIL that have been adapted for ICETEMP. The Department of Teacher Eduaction, which targets learners aged 6–15, hosts several research units of relevance to ICETEMP including Learning, Bildung and Well-being and Teacher Education Pedagogy.

KP’s research group for Foreign Language Pedagogy has a strategic focus on the integration of language- and intercultural citizenship education, with members experienced in this field at doctoral level. Further relevant experience comes from the project Motivation for Learning Languages & UN SDGs (2021–2022).

Steering committee

About TU Braunschweig

Technische Universität Braunschweig, founded in 1745 as Collegium Carolinum, is the oldest technical university in Germany and a member of the TU9 Alliance. With about 16,000 students (over 3,000 international) and 3,800 staff, it is the largest technical university in Northern Germany. The university offers 86 degree programmes across six faculties, covering engineering, natural sciences, and the humanities, social sciences, and education. TU Braunschweig is a leading research university in Lower Saxony, situated in one of Europe’s most active R&D regions. Its key interdisciplinary research areas include mobility, metrology, future cities, and global health, supported by two Clusters of Excellence. The university maintains partnerships with around 400 institutions in over 60 countries, including more than 310 Erasmus agreements.

About the faculty

The Faculty of Humanities and Education has eight departments and offers, among others, Master of Education programmes for Primary and Secondary School, with ELT as one of the major subjects.
The Department of English and American Studies provides teacher-training courses as part of the successfully accredited “Two-Subject-B.A.’’ and the subsequent Master of Education tracks (primary and secondary levels). These include three certificate programs in CLIL), Inclusive English Teaching (ZiEl), and Education for Sustainable Development through the interdisciplinary Global Learning Certificate. In addition, the department contributes to interdisciplinary programs such as an MA in Culture of the Techno-scientific World (KTW), and BA/MA programs in Media Studies, Performing Arts and Art (with Braunschweig University of Art (HBK)).

The department emphasizes exploratory teaching and learning in each area of English Studies (Linguistics, British and American Literary and Cultural Studies, TEFL, and Language Skills). The department is internationally recognized and has been funded by prestigious institutions including the German Research Council (DFG), the Volkswagen Foundation and the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (NMWK). The department participated in the Erasmus+ project ICEPELL, which the ICETEMP project is further developing.

Steering committee

About RPTU

The University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, also known as RPTU, was established in January 2023 when the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and the Landau campus of the University of Koblenz-Landau merged. Situated in the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, the RPTU is home to 12 faculties, covering a wide range of subject areas, such as architecture, engineering, natural and environmental sciences, computer science, psychology as well as education and cultural sciences. The university currently caters for 20,000 students and runs 160 study programmes. There is strong cooperation with other research centres, such as two Fraunhofer Institutes (IESE and ITWM), the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), but also with universities in Germany and other European countries, such as Luxembourg and France. Numerous research projects have been supported by the EU and the German Research Foundation (DFG), many of which in the areas of natural, computer and environmental sciences.

About the faculty

The Faculty of Culture and Social Studies (KSW) at the Landau campus offers teacher education courses for all school types, that is primary, secondary, special needs as well as vocational school. All students on the primary degree scheme attend modern foreign language modules in English or French, either as their major or as a minor subject. Every semester, there are about 150 to 200 new students entering our Integrated Foreign Language Programme (IFB) for English within KSW.

At RPTU, several research projects on intercultural learning and mulilingualism have been carried out in the Education Department, such as SpraKult and MehrSprachen. At KSW, Square Dance in primary EFL has been a part of teacher education for more than 10 years and picturebooks have featured in courses of our primary EFL programme (e.g. Smieja, B. and Weyrauch, O. (Eds.) Fächerübergreifender Grundschulunterricht. Beiträge aus Theorie und Praxis. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang).

Steering committee

About Universidad Complutense de Madrid

The Complutense University of Madrid (Spanish: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, UCM) was founded in 1293 in Alcalá and moved to Madrid in 1836 is one of the world’s oldest universities and Spain’s most prestigious tertiary educational institutions. It enrolls around 92,000 students and has played a major role in the political development of Spain since its founding.  The university currently offers nearly 80 possible majors, 230 individual degrees, and 221 doctorate programs. UCM develops a large number of activities of international cooperation, such as conventions, European programs, and projects that allow the exchange of students, teachers, researchers, and administration personnel with universities from around the world. Our university actively maintains agreements of cooperation with more than 900 institutions in 77 countries.

About the faculty

Established in 1991, the UCM School of Education has evolved into a renowned teacher training center in Spain. Its core purpose is preparing future educators to work in a range of contexts including pre-primary to upper secondary and community education. This preparation spans from early childhood education to tertiary levels, reflecting the faculty’s commitment to addressing the diverse needs of learners across the educational continuum. A teaching staff unit focused on English language didactics offers a range of course modules in the undergraduate degree in Education for primary school teachers and in the UCM masters course for secondary school teacher education.

The UCM School of Education hosts the Research Group on Multilingualism, Multiliteracies and Language Education (a.k.a. Forum for Multilingualism and Language Education, ForMuLE), coordinated by Dr. Aoife Ahern and Dr. Isabel García Parejo. This research group’s activities are closely aligned with the ICETEMP project goals, thereby offering a point of contact between the project actions and a group of researchers with potential to enhance impacts of its work in the area of initial teacher education, teacher development and links to schools and in-service teacher training institutes where ICETEMP outcomes can build sustainable connections.  The Research group members are co-founding members of the Language and Literacy in Education Network with institutions and experts worldwide and have engaged UCM students in a range of COIL projects with students in Colombia, Germany, Turkey, the USA and other nations.

Steering committee

About University of Udine

Founded in 1978, the University of Udine has a considerable European and international profile. It is appreciated for its student-oriented dimension and its high-profile research high-ranking, especially in the areas of language studies and education. It is situated in Udine, Friuli Venezia Giulia, North-East of Italy, at the heart of Europe. It is an international, plurilingual and intercultural university at the cross-roads between the Mediterranean region, the Balkans and Northern Europe.

The University of Udine has 1,279 members of staff and 15,345 students (2023-2024). It offers 41 bachelor degrees, 39 two-year post-graduate degrees, 3 five/six-year post-graduate degrees, 27 schools of specialization, 24 master degrees, 28 PhD programmes in the following fields: foreign languages and literatures, education and teacher training, agriculture, arts and cultural heritage, biotechnology, communication studies, economics, law, engineering and architecture, mathematics, computer sciences and multimedia, medicine.

The University of Udine has a very active network of international exchanges of students and staff with European and extra-European countries.

About the faculty

The Department of Languages, Literatures, Communication, Education and Society (DILL) has a long-standing experience in the research areas of languages and literatures, teacher education, linguistics (theoretical and applied), media studies and communication. The language section has a relevant track record of research in the field of learning and teaching a broad range of languages. The Department has several Research Units focusing on transnational and communication studies: Dis4-Change (Discourse on climate change), Partnership Studies Group, Center for Canadian Studies, Oltreoceano CILM (International, Center for Migrant Literatures), Center for Austrian Studies, Center for Italian as a Foreign Language, YELL/TELL, PRAGER and TRANSLAB.

Teacher education and training are key areas for the department and several degree programmes. The Young English Language Learner research group has worked on storytelling for children in English as an additional language for 15 years. Two relevant initiatives involving pre-service teachers:

  • Let’s Tell a Tale (2012-2019) was a collaboration between UniUD and local libraries offering primary school children an experience of storytelling in English through the mediation of a picturebook by student teachers.
  • TALES (Telling and Listening to Ecosustainable Stories) is based on the collaboration between our department and cultural associations and institutions. It aims to promote eco-sustainable communication among new generations and citizenship education through storytelling and read-aloud sessions in English.

Steering committee

About Çukurova University

Founded in 1973, Çukurova University, is located on the Balcalı Campus Adana,Türkiye. Initially established with only two faculties, it has grown into a comprehensive institution comprising 19 faculties, 11 vocational schools, one state conservatory, four institutes, and 38 research  centers. The university offers a wide range of programmes across disciplines such as foreign languages, medicine, engineering, law, agriculture, and computer science and multimedia studies. Çukurova University was awarded the European Council Diploma Supplement Label in 2012, reflecting its commitment to international academic standards. As an accredited state university, CU is recognized for its strong research profile and its provision of both undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs. The University maintains a strong commitment to internationalization, fostering global partnerships and student mobility. The University has more more than 2,100 academic staff and 46,000 students.

About the faculty

The Faculty of Education at Çukurova University hosts an English Language Teacher Education department with over twenty years of experience, offering BA, MA, and PhD programmes for prospective language teachers. Within the BA programme, the course “World Englishes and Culture” incorporates topics related to culture and picturebooks, while the Discussion Skills course addresses themes of global citizenship.

At Çukurova University, the Faculty of Education is supported by active research units that contribute to innovation in language teacher education. Several research initiatives and academic projects focus on English language pedagogy, intercultural communication, curriculum development, and teacher professional learning, fostering the integration of language education with intercultural and global citizenship perspectives. Building on this research capacity, the current ICETEMPT project draws on the University’s established expertise in intercultural coummnunication, and teacher education,  extending this work into new collaborative and international contexts.

Contact

Karoline Søgaard

Associate lecturer