The Council of Europe and the European Commission celebrate the European Day of Languages on 26 September.

This year it has been important to help refugees from Ukraine settle as much as possible into their host countries, both neighbouring and far away. A central part of this help is assisting member states in their response to the challenges faced by those providing language support to both children and adults. The Council of Europe has developed a set of tools for this very purpose, which takes into consideration the refugees specific needs for adjusting to their new environment.

The tools are designed to help organisations, teachers, and volunteers assisting newly arrived people with no, or very little knowledge, of the language of the new country.

Particular attention is paid to the school environment for children. Nine tools have been translated into the languages of neighbouring countries with the largest numbers of refugees from the war in Ukraine: Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak/Czech, as well as French and Italian.

Twenty-three new tools have been adapted from the Toolkit for adults which was developed as part of the Council of Europe’s Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants (LIAM) project.