Lay Teachers are nonprofessional instructors who are not certified or fully trained according to the standards of the area or country. Lay teachers can avoid the usual traps for professional teachers giving school-type language classes for refugees. This open thus the path for pedagogical innovation. They can set up also non-conventional learning environments, like non-formal and informal learning. Some traditional teaching didactics dont take specific needs of adult migrants and refugees learners into account. Available programmes do not fit all populations. In contrast, participatory didactic methods have shown good progress in learners who have not profited from formal teaching. Active pedagogies such as relating lessons to real life, individualisation, self-directed work and collaborative learning are among the pedagogies with the strongest evidence in favour of their effectiveness on the basis of the literature review.

The aim of LAY TEACHERS project is to support non-professional teachers, also known as Lay Teachers, as volunteers who collaborate with adult education providers and civil society organisations who assist migrants and refugees, supporting them with innovative non-conventional teaching learning methods and resources, like Cooperative learning and contextual Meaning-based learning, tailor made to introduce refugees to the national languages.