FOCUS Project

📚✨ Inclusive learning can become more effective through simple but creative teaching strategies!

The Embedded Phonics Mnemonic Strategy combines phonics, visuals, and memory techniques to help learners connect sounds with letters more easily. 🧠🔤

By using multisensory and engaging approaches, teachers can support learners with reading and language difficulties, helping them improve confidence, participation, and language skills in a more supportive classroom environment. 🌍🤝

The FOCUS project continues exploring practical and inclusive methods that make foreign language learning more accessible for every learner. 💡🎮

Read more here: https://focus-project.eu/embedded-phonics-mnemonic-strategy/

Dear English teachers,

As part of the Erasmus+ FOCUS project, we are looking for English teachers who would be interested in testing digital educational games for learning English.
More details: www.focus-project.eu
The games are designed for use in the learning process, so your professional opinion, classroom experience and feedback would be very valuable for their further development.

Teachers interested in modern, interactive and gamified approaches to English language teaching are warmly invited to take part.

For more information, please contact me at:
[email protected] or follow us here and send us a message or comment!

We look forward to hearing from you and hopefully working with you!

Home - FOCUS Our Erasmus+ project, that aims to equip teachers with specialized training and provide engaging tools to make learning foreign languages accessible for

🎮✨ Gamification can make foreign language learning more inclusive, engaging, and motivating for learners with learning difficulties.

Through interactive digital games, students can strengthen language, cognitive, and social skills in a supportive and enjoyable environment. 💡📚

The FOCUS project continues exploring practical ways to help teachers create more accessible and learner-friendly classrooms through Digital Game-Based Learning. 🌍🤝

FOCUS in Perugia! 🇮🇹✨
From 21 to 24 April, partners met for a Transnational Project Meeting and a hands-on teacher training. 🤝📚

20 foreign language teachers explored the FOCUS Online Training Program, working on topics like learning difficulties, inclusive teaching, digital games 🎮 and AI in education 🤖.

Through interactive workshops, participants tested tools, shared ideas, and designed activities for real classroom use. 💡

Read more here 👇

FOCUS Project Advances in Perugia: Strengthening Training and Collaboration - FOCUS From 21 to 24 April 2026, the FOCUS project partners gathered in Perugia for a dynamic week that combined a Transnational Project Meeting (TPM) with a pilot

Three days. One Focus.

From 22 to 24 April 2026, educators and professionals from across Europe gathered in Perugia, Italy, for the Erasmus+ FOCUS Transnational Training - a 3-day international learning experience dedicated to inclusive foreign language teaching.

The training brought together teachers, trainers, school staff and professionals working with children with learning difficulties to explore innovative methods, practical tools and inspiring approaches for the classroom.

Through interactive workshops, hands-on activities, case studies, peer learning and exchange of good practices, participants focused on:

✨ inclusive foreign language teaching
🎲 Digital Game-Based Learning
🤖 AI tools for inclusive education
👨‍👩‍👧 cooperation with families
🌍 European exchange and collaboration
📚 practical use of FOCUS project resources

Together, we strengthened educators’ competences, supporting learners with diverse needs and contributed to making foreign language learning more accessible, playful and meaningful for every child.

Be part of the change. Inspire inclusion. Transform learning.

📚🧠 SPECIFIC LEARNING DISORDERS AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES: A REAL CHALLENGE. BUT THE RIGHT METHOD MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

How many children with dyslexia, dysorthography or dyscalculia have been told — or heard their parents say — that learning English is "just too hard for them"? Yet the scientific evidence tells a very different story.

✅ Students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) can learn a foreign language. The problem is not the disorder itself — it is too often the way the language is being taught.

🔍 WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?

Recent studies — including a national survey involving 330 foreign language teachers across Italian secondary schools — confirm that the difficulties faced by students with SLD in language learning are not linked to intelligence, but to specific cognitive obstacles:

🔤 The main challenge lies in the written code, especially in so-called "opaque" languages like English, where a single letter can correspond to many different sounds. The English alphabet has 26 letters, but 45 distinct sounds and around 150 ways to transcribe them — a genuine maze for any learner, and even more so for a dyslexic brain.

🗣️ By contrast, "transparent" languages such as Spanish or Italian — where words are written as they sound — tend to be more accessible for students with SLD.

😰 Another significant factor is language anxiety: reading aloud in front of the class, copying from the board, or taking part in spontaneous conversation can become genuinely stressful experiences for students with specific learning disorders.

📋 WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?

In Italy, Law 170/2010 guarantees students with SLD the right to compensatory tools and dispensatory measures, including in foreign language learning. The updated Guidelines of 2025 make clear that these tools are not optional — they are a core part of every student's right to education. The Ministerial Order 67 of March 2025 has also introduced, for the State Examinations, personalised assessment formats and the option to take an oral test in place of the written one.

The legislation is in place. The tools exist. What is still needed is proper teacher training and genuine awareness in the classroom.

💡 WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS IN THE CLASSROOM?

Research shows that students with SLD learn more effectively through non-verbal visual, auditory and kinaesthetic channels. Here are some strategies that truly make a difference:

👁️ Visual supports: images, mind maps, graphic organisers
🎧 Prioritising speaking and listening over written tasks
💻 Text-to-speech software and spell checkers
⏱️ Extra time and reduced cognitive load
🤝 Getting to know each student individually — because every SLD profile is unique

As the scientific literature consistently shows: the learning process may well be slower, but acquiring a foreign language is absolutely achievable for students with SLD.

🌍📖 EUROPE IS INVESTING IN CHILDREN WHO LEARN DIFFERENTLY — ARE YOU?
Imagine a classroom where every child, regardless of their learning difficulties, is able to learn a foreign language with confidence and peace of mind. This is not a dream — it is the concrete goal of the FOCUS European project. 🇪🇺
Thanks to the dedication of researchers, teachers, speech therapists and occupational therapists from Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania, Italy and Spain, we have built something truly unique: an open and free database, designed for everyone who works daily with children between the ages of 6 and 12 who experience learning difficulties.

🗂️ WHAT DOES THE FOCUS DATABASE CONTAIN?

📌 CASE STUDIES
Real experiences documented in European primary schools. Concrete situations, challenges faced, and solutions found — because learning from others is always the strongest starting point.

✅ BEST PRACTICES
A curated collection of the most effective methodologies for teaching foreign languages to children with special educational needs. Tried-and-tested tools, ready to be adapted to your own classroom reality.

🎙️ PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEWS
Authentic voices from those working on the front line: language teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists and other specialists. Different approaches, one shared goal: breaking down the barriers to learning.

📊 RESEARCH REPORT
The full research report, the result of months of fieldwork across six European countries. Data, analysis and insights for those who wish to explore the topic with scientific rigour.

💡 WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Learning difficulties are not an insurmountable barrier. With the right tools, every child can build strong language skills that will stay with them for life. The teachers and professionals who support them deserve resources that are up to date, accessible and grounded in real evidence.

The FOCUS project was born from exactly this belief: improving the training of educators means improving the future of every single child. 💙

🚀 YOUR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT STARTS HERE

Access the database for free, explore the content that best fits your context, and bring a fresh, inclusive, research-based approach into your classroom.

🔗 Visit the database: https://focus-project.eu/database/

📌 Save this post and share it with your colleagues — it could make a real difference for many children!


https://focus-project.eu/getting-to-know-children-with-special-educational-needs-a-new-standard-for-inclusive-education/

Getting to Know Children with Special Educational Needs: A New Standard for Inclusive Education - FOCUS In the ever-evolving world of education, one truth remains clear: every child deserves the opportunity to thrive. The newly highlighted Lithuanian best

Every child can learn a foreign language. Even those who struggle the most.
How many times have we heard, or said "with dyslexia, English is impossible"? Research says otherwise.
The European FOCUS project (Erasmus+) is working on precisely this: training teachers, developing inclusive tools and multisensory games to make language learning accessible to all children, including those with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD).
Because a language is not just grammar. It is a way of seeing the world. And excluding a child from that experience is not a neutral choice — it is a loss.
👉 Discover the project:
https://focus-project.eu/getting-to-know-children-with.../

🧠 Did you know that dyscalculia can also play a role in language learning?

Dyscalculia is often linked to numbers, but it actually impacts how the brain processes patterns, sequences, and time. These same skills are essential when learning a new language—like understanding grammar rules, remembering word order, or using verb tenses correctly.

For some learners, this can mean:
🔹 needing more time to grasp structures
🔹 finding it harder to remember vocabulary sequences
🔹 struggling with concepts like past vs present

But it’s not about intelligence or ability—it’s simply a different way of processing information.

💡 With supportive approaches like clear explanations, repetition and multi-sensory learning, people with dyscalculia can absolutely succeed in language learning.

👉 Learn more from the European Dyslexia Association: https://eda-info.eu/what-is-dyscalculia/

What is Dyscalculia? – European Dyslexia Association These difficulties typically result from domain specific deficits in numerical and mathematical symbol processing and understanding (core dyscalculia) and/or domain general deficits in executive functions (working memory, inhibition, flexibility), hypersensitivity to interference in memory, visuo-sp...

Tatjana Babrauskienė, Head of International Activities at the Lithuanian Education and Science Trade Union, participated in the ETUCE Standing Committee for Equality Meeting held on 16–17 March 2026 in Bucharest, Romania.
During the meeting, she presented the FOCUS project, which aims to strengthen inclusive foreign language education for children with learning difficulties. The project supports teachers by developing innovative teaching methods, digital educational games, and training resources that help create more inclusive and effective learning environments for students aged 6–12.

More about the project: https://focus-project.eu/