With the Megafon Award, the Joachim Herz Foundation honors four exemplary language development projects for children and adults across Germany. They are intended to promote personal development and enable social participation. The award was presented for the second time on Friday, September 23, in Hamburg. The prize money totaling 70,000 euros went to two projects in Hamburg and Bremen.

The aim of the award is to promote diversity and creativity in language education. This is because around 20% of all school-leavers in Germany have considerable weaknesses in their use of the German language. Reading, understanding, and writing even simple texts poses big problems for them – a significant disadvantage for individual educational and career paths as well as for social participation.

Support for Young People Who Have Not Attended School in Their Countries of Origin

The main prize in the category “Language development projects for children and young adults aged 10 to 16” was awarded to the “Education in the Migration Society/Intercultural Education” work area together with the “German as a Second Language/Foreign Language” work area with the LITALPHA project (Literacy development for young people with migration experiences through action-oriented learning in all subjects using the example of “schoolyard design”).

This offer is aimed at young people who have recently moved to Germany and who have not attended school in their countries of origin, such as Afghanistan. They are helped to understand, speak, read, and write German in a very short space of time, so that they can follow lessons on different subjects as soon as possible in a normal classroom. In a project week in October 2022, around 50 pupils will receive action-oriented language lessons with a specific reference point – designing their own schoolyard.
Because both students of teaching and the Competency Center for Interculturality in Schools (Kom.In) of the State Institute for Schools in Bremen (LIS) are involved in the project, corresponding advanced training courses can also be developed for teacher training.
“We are very pleased about the award,” says Professor Yasemin Karakasoglu. “The prize encourages us to integrate the topic of basic education for young people into teacher training and to support teachers through university in their demanding work.”
The award-winning project LIALPHA originated in the tutoring workshop “Subjects, Language, Migration” (LehrLernwerkstatt: Fach, Sprache, Migration) at the University of Bremen in cooperation with the literacy center of the state of Bremen at the Oberschule am Leibnizplatz secondary school.

Promoting Reading and Writing Skills for Vocational Preparation

The advancement award of 10,000 euros was awarded to the “Digital Career-Related Promotion of Reading and Writing Skills” project (in short: BeLeSen). With the help of the online platform “lea.online,” it enables teachers to provide low-threshold support to young adults in improving their reading and writing skills.
The award-winning project belongs to the research area “Media Pedagogics and Didactic Design of Multimedial Learning Environments” under the direction of Professor Karsten D. Wolf, who received the award jointly with Junior Professor Ilka Koppel of the University of Education Weingarten in the category “Language promotion projects for children and young people aged 17 to 25.”
As part of the BeLeSen project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the digital support materials for literacy practice are made available for vocational preparation and teachers are supported in using them in a targeted and supportive manner for language promotion. Professor Karsten D. Wolf is delighted about the advancement award: “We provide teachers with age-appropriate tools and materials to give pupils a better start to their professional lives: free of charge as educational resources (Open Educational Resources).”

About the Joachim Herz Foundation

The nonprofit Joachim Herz Foundation promotes education, science, and research. It works predominantly operatively, primarily in the fields of the natural sciences, business, and personal development. Small, innovative projects of third parties are also supported in these three areas. In addition, the foundation supports research projects in the fields of medicine, law, and engineering sciences, as well as projects in German-American exchange. The Joachim Herz Foundation was established in 2008 and is one of Germany’s largest foundations.

Further Information:

www.lehrlernwerkstatt.uni-bremen.de/

(in German)
www.lealernen.de/paedagogen/ (in German)
www.joachim-herz-stiftung.de/megafon(in German)
www.uni-bremen.de/en/

Press photos of the award ceremony will be available for download from 4 p.m. on September 23 at www.joachim-herz-stiftung.de/pressefotos

Contact:

Professor Yasemin Karakasoglu
Faculty of Pedagogy and Educational Sciences
Department of Intercultural Education
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-69120
Email: karakasoprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Professor Karsten D. Wolf
Research area: Media Pedagogics and Didactic Design of Multimedial Learning Environments
Faculty of Pedagogy and Educational Sciences
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-69140
Email: wolf@uni-bremen.de