The DINOTOUR European Project, under the Leonardo da Vinci action,  is aimed to improve the quality and attractiveness of the vocational system of pre-school education  in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey by adapting and integrating the innovative language teaching approach called “Narrative Format” into the Bulgarian, Romanian and Turkish  national and sectorial training systems for pre-school teachers.  The “Narrative Format” was developed by the University of Rome Sapienza  in cooperation with other European Universities and was validated and completed with the relevant materials through the  EC Socrates Lingua Projects  “The Adventures of Hocus and Lotus” and  “The Dinocrocs grow up”. DINOTOUR was proposed by ‘Educational Programmes Consult’ Ltd., a Bulgarian Educational institution, and its coordinator is Mrs. Karolina Palchovska. Beside Italy ( DITI srl and the Sapienza University of Rome that releases the know-how on the narrative format), the other Project partners are Romania (Euro Ed Foundation), and Turkey (Fehiyse State College for Vocational Training). Hungary is not part of the project but joined as interested partner.

The Project’s aims will be obtained  by training  a certain number of teachers from the Countries receiving the know-how and   by applying  this innovative method  in  schools of Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey . The first step of the training  took place in Fabro (Italy) from the 4th to the 10th of May 2008. It was a mix of theoretical lessons (the speakers   were Traute Taeschner, Sabine Pirchio, and Pasquale Rinaldi)  on the principles at the basis of the Narrative Format Approach, and of practical lessons in which the participants  learned the relevant classroom activities .

It was a vibrant week, full of challenges and of great satisfactions as  evidenced  by the questionnaires filled in by the participants. Above all, thanks to what they  learnt in that week, all of them felt confident with the new teaching model and able to put it into practice in the classroom at the start of the school year (September 2008).  A large collection of linguistic data from children and teachers is scheduled to be available by April 2009.

With these  data  on children’s linguistic competences, the  correct introduction of both, the teachers training model and the Educational-Linguistic model in these Countries  can be assessed.