Discussion

The project work started with a short research about volunteering in all partner countries. 5 regular transnational meetings ensured a good project progress.

During the meetings partners worked in groups, discussing different aspects of volunteering. Older learners and volunteers have always participated in the meetings, as their meaning and approach was very important. Discussion groups, involving volunteers and volunteer organizations were also created on national level.

The SenVol project showed the volunteering of elderly people in different contexts and cultures of the participating countries and showed that today our society does not really work without volunteering. It also highlighted the learning process that takes place during volunteering.

The project tends to create a simple text for the teaching of English to adults and elders essential to break down barriers, to communicate and be understood not only by native speakers but also by people belonging to different linguistic contexts. Therefore it was essential to examine the specific teaching methods to train English teachers who, in turn, in a simple and very basic way could pass on the learning of English to adult students who are part of Europe’s Third Age Universities united and in need of the knowledge of English.

The Council of Europe in 2005 promoted the Year of European Citizenship with the slogan “Learning to Live Democracy”. The fight against discrimination and racism were the concept of democracy and legality, active participation emphasized. The Federuni has developed these themes and carried out a sociological research in 2010 in collaboration with the Rezzara Chair. In the present multicultural society the concept of citizenship has become tendentially contradictory and conflicting. The research has proposed to survey the territory of Bari and Vicenza (South and North) in order to assess the population (young and old) taken into consideration think about citizenship.