MTU is currently involved in the following EU Commission projects, which deal with language acquisition, intercultural matters, hospitality, health and many other topics.
MTU recently conducted a survey asking staff what it means to be involved in EU Commissioned Projects. The response was very positive showing how beneficial the EU projects are to the college and to the staff members involved. One respondent claimed, "working on EU projects had enabled me to broaden my mind and gain real life experiences that I can bring into the classroom to share with my students". All findings from the survey can be found here IT Tralee EU Survey
MTU also conducted a similar survey with the National Agency. The National Agency manage international and national exchange programmes in education, youth and community work, and vocational education and training. These exchanges connect people in different communities and countries and bring an international dimension to the work of organisations across Ireland. All findings from the survey can be found here National Agency Survey
MTU was recently awarded the European Language Label for the Erasmus+ Vocal in Need Video. The European Language Label (ELL) rewards excellence and innovation in language teaching and learning across Europe. Since 1998, over 2000 projects have received this award for school education, vocational education and training or adult learning products. The ELL Awards is coordinated by the European Commission and highlights innovative initiatives in language teaching, learning and promotion, and brings these initiatives to the attention of the public along with professionals in the languages field. More information can be found here Léargas.
The CE4RT project is a trans-national collaborative project supporting a network of tourism SMEs across five partner European hubs in the areas of Sustainable Practice, the Circular Economy and Regenerative Tourism. The focus of this project is to provide tourism SMEs with the tools to implement regenerative practices as a long-term strategy within their region and to contribute to the continued resilience, viability and competitiveness of the industry. 80 SMEs from across the network will be chosen to participate in this project and will be provided with a suite of knowledge and training based on the specific needs and the readiness stage in the sustainable journey.
This will be achieved through a range of activities such as training seminars, mentoring, coaching, community events and familiarisation trips. A repository of knowledge will be created and disseminated on various platforms, not just to the participating tourism SMEs, but will be made available for all tourism practitioners throughout Europe as well as higher educational institutions. An innovative methodology will be employed involving the concept of ‘Leaders and Learners’ with 2 SME participants chosen from each participating jurisdiction to act as leaders within the community for the facilitation and implementation of regenerative tourism practice.
Tourism stakeholders from across Europe will be invited to attend a virtual conference from which the outputs of this project can be shared. The CE4RT project aligns and contributes to a number of SDGs and objectives of a range of EU and UN policy initiatives including the European Green Deal; EU Covid 19 Recovery Framework; EC Circular Economy Action Plan; UNWTO ALULA framework; UNWTO transition to a Green Travel and Tourism Economy.
The CE4RT Project is funded under the SMP-COSME-2021-TOURSME (COVID-19 Recovery Through Sustainable Tourism Growth and SME Support) program. The project activities are distributed into 6 Work Packages (WPs), each one with a defined scope and objective.
Munster Technological University, (MTU), Ireland
Iceland Tourism Council (ITC), Iceland
Stichting Business Development, (BDF), Netherlands
Dingle Peninsula Tourism Alliance , (DTPA), Ireland
The Tourism Space (TTS), Ireland
Eastsavo Educational Federation, (SVCS), Finland
Danmar Computers, Poland
"Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISME). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”
Project: 101085456 — CE4RT — SMP-COSME-2021-TOURSME
Project Website : Deliverables and Milestones
Following the new European Commission report “Education begins with language” (June 2020) which seeks to support the implementation of the Recommendation of the Council of the European Union (EU) on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages, the main focus of BABO project will be the teaching of a second language in preschool age in an innovative way offering ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) educators and families new educational methodologies and digital resources. The consortium decided to apply for this project for three reasons:
1. LACK OF QUALITY DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN (ECEC)
The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of today’s society, bringing to the fore the weaknesses of what were thought to be the strong points of institutions, such as education. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational systems in Europe, leading to the near-total closures of schools, universities, and colleges. Kindergartens where not an exception, especially because at this age (0-3 and 3-6 years) is not possible to keep the security distance or wear a mask. Kindergartens were not ready for online education and when they were trying to look for online resources adapted to the age of their children, they did not find enough quality educational resources with pedagogical objectives (not only songs or cartoons for entertainment). Our five preschool partners from Austria, Ireland, Belgium and Spain and their networks suffered this situation during the lockdown and they had to develop their own amateur resources and videos adapted to online education.
2. LACK OF INNOVATION IN ECEC
While primary, secondary, and higher education have moved forward in digital education and educational innovation, preschool education have been offering the same education for decades and, indeed, many ECEC educators refuse digital education or new methodologies in their classrooms. Our consortium wants to improve and better adapt the education of our preschool children combining online educational materials and new place-based classroom methods while teaching an additional language. Th ECEC system have been traditionally considered “care” instead of “education” in many European countries. May be that is the reason why this project and the innovation in ECEC is more important.
3. NEED OF A HIGH QUALITY AND ADAPTED MULTILINGUAL EDUCAITON IN THE EUROPEAN ECEC SYSTEM
Although all European citizens should learn at least two languages in addition to their mother tongues in the most European countries this is not possible. Even when the European Commission and the governments of the countries are doing great efforts in training their teachers and in investing on bilingual education the results are not as expected. Our consortium knows that preschool age is the best age for learning a second language and our four multilingual preschools can prove it. So we think this project is crucial for motivating other kindergartens in Europe to offer multilingual education in preschool age.
What activities are you going to implement?
The consortium of BABO project have highlighted three main objectives which are connected with the educational objectives of the European Institutions.
1. PROMOTE HIGH QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE SYSTEM THROUGH INNOVATION
Based on a Commission proposal, the Council adopted in May 2019 a Recommendation on high quality early childhood education and care systems which aims to support Member States in their efforts to improve access to and quality of their early childhood education and care systems. As mentioned before, Innovation in ECEC systems is very low because the governments and the society have considered this educational stage traditionally as “care”. In the other hand, the low qualification of the ECEC educators in researching methods and the low or non-existent budget for innovation did not allow the innovation in this educational stage. Things seems to be changing in ECEC and we want to develop new educational methodologies connected with the Multiple Intelligences theory and the learning of languages for improving the ECEC systems in Europe. We think our project can motivate other kindergartens to investigate and enhance the quality of ECEC in many different ways.
2. PROMOTE DIGITAL EDUCATION IN ECEC (BLENDED LEARNING)
This objective connects with the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027). This plan outlines the European Commission’s vision for high-quality, inclusive, and accessible digital education in Europe. It is a call to action for stronger cooperation at European level to: • learn from the COVID-19 crisis, during which technology is being used at an unprecedented scale in education and training • make education and training systems fit for the digital age Our consortium wants to develop online resources for ECEC educators and families in order to facilitate the preschool children the learning of a second language in a way they like while having fun. For this purpose we will work together Multilingual kindergartens, educational experts, universities, and technological companies in order to develop educational games, educational cartoons, and an educational app (game) for learning languages.
3. PROMOTE THE LEARNING OF LANGUAGES IN PRESCHOOL AGE
This objective is connected with the European Council’s 2019 Recommendation on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages that sets the ambitious goal of ensuring that, by the time young people leave upper secondary education, they can speak at least three languages. In addition to this, by introducing the concepts of ‘literacy’ and ‘language awareness’, the Recommendation aims to change the mindset of policymakers and teachers, inspiring them to adopt comprehensive language education policies, as well as "innovative and inclusive language teaching methods". Language competences are at the heart of the ambitious vision to create a European Education Area. BABO project wants to introduce in the European kindergartens and innovative methodology for teaching languages adapted to the age and capacities of the children and involving ECEC educators and families.
More Information:
Website: www.baboproject.com
The hospitality and tourism industry is known for its culturally diverse workplaces and companies. Unfortunately, research has shown a lack of proper training for industry managers and employees to overcome the many challenges of communication in intercultural settings. According to the HOTREC (The Trade Association for Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés in Europe), more than one third of tourism accommodation managers (including owners) and employees have a lower level of cultural awareness and the general level of intercultural training still remains lower in hospitality sector than in the whole EU economy.
In many EU countries there are a number of intercultural training programmes available on the market, but most of them are generally for multicultural companies and they normally target 1 to 2 specific cultures or countries. For example, some intercultural training programmes are designed to only teach Asian countries customs, religions or peoples behaviour in western countries so they can easily communicate with Asian people and understand their needs when they have Asian customers. The need to conduct an intercultural training programme that will cover more areas has apparently caught many hoteliers¿ attention but there is not enough being done with it.
Some international hotel chains have intercultural e-learning courses on the companies¿ website and their employees are required to log in and go through the web pages in order to build up intercultural awareness within the organisation. However, most existing training programmes do not contain enough useful information and they hardly help their hotel managers and employees understand cultural differences and build up their intercultural awareness. To sum up, the lack of effective intercultural training has slowed down:
1) the improvement of relations between individuals from different cultures at hotel workplaces and
2) the improvement of services provided to international guests, and the process of ameliorating this lack needs to develop.
InterCulturalHotel project is therefore motivated to develop a new, innovative intercultural training framework for the hospitality sector that would fit the actual needs of the hospitality professionals. The new intercultural training or crosscultural training programme will not be developed to let hospitality staff and stakeholders (including owners) become cultural issue experts, but to prepare them for surprises that can arise in a foreign cultural situation and plant intercultural awareness into their minds.
This project will assess the intercultural competences of the hospitality managers and employees, and create a training methodology using critical intercultural incidents derived from the everyday work engagement. These incidents will be used to create three prototypes for each of the following hotel departments: Front Desk, Food and Beverage, Housekeeping and Management.
The prototypes will be localised and contextualised content in order to fit to the realities of each partner country. Animated dialogues will be created in order to make the delivery of intercultural education more effective. Taking into consideration the conditions in the hospitality sector after the Covid-19 crisis, the consortium will, as an addition to web-based resources, develop a mobile application to become the mean for delivering the education 24x7, anytime and anywhere. All content will appear in English as well as the languages of the host countries.
This project will also help hotel staff create intercultural connection with guests from China or Russia whose culture and social interaction differ significantly from Western cultures. The numbers of visitors from these countries are expected to rise and the mobile application will offer speedy access to simple phrases (as well as cultural information that will help staff adapt its cultural behaviour. Existing automatic translators are far from accurate and often fail to provide adequate translation exactly for fixed phrases like greetings, etiquette phrases, etc. The project will test and pilot all of its outputs through its target groups.
The project objectives are:
1.Broaden the intercultural awareness of hospitality staff;
2.Establish a more creative and collaborative working environment in hospitality;
3.Increase the competitiveness of the hospitality sector in Europe;
4.Foster an inclusive and equitable workplace culture;
5.Introduce an educational model which aligns with the realities of the hospitality sector; and where possible, include VET tutors and students;
6.Offer localised and contextualised educational content;
7.Prepare hotel staff’s intercultural and linguistic capacity of the upcoming tourist markets of Russia and China;
8. Improve the cultural experience of guests;
9.Help build interpersonal connections and facilitate the interpersonal processes in a multicultural workforce
During the course of “InterculturalHotel” several outcomes, including project results, will be produced:
- Identification of the intercultural challenges in hospitality
- Development of prototypes for three critical incidents in the four most important hotel departments: front desk, food and beverage, housekeeping and management
- Localisation and contextualisation of all critical incidents to fit into the partner countries’ realities
- Development of a mobile devices application which will give access to the educational content created for these critical incidents in the form of audio-enabled scenarios/virtual tours
- Language teaching materials in Chinese and Russian comprising of basic key words and phrases as well as cultural information about the visitors from these two countries to be utilised by hotel staff members (including owners, managers and employees) to provide more personalised services
- Dissemination of all project's results
- 10 local multiplier events attended in total by members of the target groups and combined with a final conference
- Enhancement of intercultural competences of hospitality staff (owners, managers and employees)
- Increase tourists’ satisfaction and competitiveness of European tourism
- Professional development of the staff of the partner organisations in project management and implementation of EU projects
- Improve working conditions and foreign employee integration in the hospitality sector, making employment opportunities in hospitality sector more attractive
-Interaction between research, practice and policy, to foster economic and social development
- Potential adoption of the innovative educational practices by non-formal institutions in vocational education
- Development of partnerships and bonds between VETs and the hospitality sector; and where possible, include VET tutors and students
- Added value to the Open Educational Resources (OER) platform
- Benefit for the hospitality and the EU economy as a whole
Munster Technological University - Ireland
DEKAPLUS BUSINESS SERVICESLTD - Cyprus
EDEX - EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE CORPORATION LIMITED - Cyprus
STOWARZYSZENIE CENTRUM WSPIERANIA EDUKACJI I PRZEDSIEBIORCZOSCI - Poland
APOSTOLINA TSAL TAMPASI KAI SIA EE - Greece
STICHTING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FRIESLAND - Netherlands
PLOVDIVSKI UNIVERSITET PAISIY HILENDARSKI - Bulgaria
Klaipedos turizmo mokykla - Lithuania
LABC S.R.L. - Italy
Srednja sola za gostinstvo in turizem Celje - Slovenia
Intercultural Hotel Newsletter 1
Intercultural Hotel Newsletter 2
Intercultural Hotel Newsletter 3
Intercultural Hotel Newsletter 4
Before the pandemic, increased numbers of young people were setting up their own solopreneur enterprises – this trend is expected to accelerate post pandemic. The Global Educational Times (February 28, 2020) has reported that much of business and enterprise training and education is based on outdated teaching methods and content. It argues that despite living in an ever-changing world, where radical innovation affects all industries, the way business and enterprise is taught and what is taught is dated: many VET teacher/trainers do not understand the needs of today’s enterprises especially in relation to digital technology.
MyVA will develop a mini business MBA Training Package in CZ, DK, EN, ES, RO and SE. It will benefit two target groups (1) VET teacher/trainers and (2) young people (Millennials) interested in setting up their own Virtual Agency. MYVA aims to improve the capacity of VET teacher/trainers to improve their knowledge and understanding of the concept of the solopreneur and their needs. Similarly, aspiring solopreneurs need to learn about how to set up and run a solopreneur enterprise. The MyVA Mini MBA course will address the needs of BOTH target groups.
The MyVA Mini MBA course will be available in all partner languages and accessible online, through the project website. The curriculum and course will comprise a set of 6 - 8 practical bite-sized learning modules covering topics such as:
The project will involve 35 young people and 14 VET teacher/trainers plus 230 participants attending a series of seven Multiplier Events. The MyVA partners will share the project results and impacts with 10K members of the two target groups and other VET stakeholders through a planned dissemination strategy running throughout the project.
MyVA will help VET centres to adapt to the new COVID19 environment by building on past lessons and creating a set of practical tools and a new MyVA Mini MBA course. It will also help VET centres and teacher/trainers to implement digital learning tools into their VET courses.
Partners will use a Creative Commons inspired license agreement to ensure that online access remains open and unrestricted. The learning portal will remain available ensuring the on-going availability of the learning resources after the project: it will operate as an Open Educational Resource (OER). This will ensure that VET teacher/trainers other VET stakeholders can download and access the project products and Outputs.
The main expected results of the project include a new, on-line Training Package (MyVA Mini MBA) and a set of MyVA Enterprise Plans – these will be used to train 14 VET teacher/trainers who will in turn train and support 35 young people in seven partner counties.
MyVA aims to develop a training programme and a set of enterprise tools in multiple languages (CZ DK, EN, ES, RO and SE ) enabling VET teacher/trainers to support young people interested in setting up an enterprise as a ‘solopreneur’. To achieve this, partners will:
(1) raise awareness of the benefits of and how to set up a new solopreneur enterprise
(2) provide a continuing professional development programme for VET teacher/trainers enabling them to understand the ‘solopreneur’ business model and
(3) increase the capability and competences of VET teacher/trainers and VET institute’s to exploit digital tools in the delivery of VET.
MyVA will deliver a set of activities to help two target groups (i.e. VET teacher/trainers and SMEs) to understand how to incorporate and use digital on-line technology to support enterprise development and sustainability.
HÄLSINGLANDS UTBILDNINGSFÖRBUND - Sweden
Fundatia Centrul Educational Spektrum - Romania
Exponential Training & Assessment Limited - United Kingdom
FO-Aarhus - Denmark
EOLAS S.L. - Spain
Munster Technological University - Ireland
DEX INNOVATION CENTRE -Czech Republic
Many companies and organisations in Europe struggle in the war for talents – they are in urgent need of qualified personnel. This particularly applies to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). On the other hand, Europe is experiencing unprecedented high levels mobility of people from EU member states and from other parts of the world. Many of these migrating people are well qualified but face difficulties in accessing the labour market.
The project aims at enhancing key competences of Human Resource management and recruitment staff of SMEs in order to help them find adequate and qualified culturally diverse personnel by better understanding, recognising, reflecting on and managing cultural unconscious bias in recruitment and hiring situations as well as in other daily work processes.
The expected project’s results are both, tangible and intangible.
The aim of this system is to develop knowledge and competences of SMEs managers and recruitment staff in understanding, recognising, reflecting on and managing the unconscious bias while hiring workers. As a result the SMEs will be able to recruit suitable personnel and having better work force, improve own operations and effectiveness.
Assist international Human Resources GmbH offers intercultural training, leadership training, communication training as well as coaching, consulting and international workshops with innovative, blended learning instruments to support the sustainable development of international teams, leaders and global organisations.
With our experience in the development of training materials combined with our unique blended learning concept, Smart international Learning, we complement our face-to-face training with innovative learning formats to optimise the learning efficiency and sustainability of training content and competence.
Our customers are both public and private sector, international corporations, larger and medium sized organisations. Since 2014 assist is also involved in EU-project partnerships, providing intercultural know –how for online learning.
BrainLog
BrainLog is a non-profit organization developing and managing national and international funded projects focusing on innovation and education within business development, web and mobile applications, entrepreneurship, innovation within sport and wellbeing, non-formal education, and social inclusion in Denmark.
Co&So
Co&So is a consortium of cooperatives located in Tuscany region which includes social and not social cooperatives working in the social and cultural fields. Co&So counts 26 employees who provide services to the associated. The main services are:
administration, monitoring the calls and as a consequence to submit calls most on public procurement, offering European opportunities in order to promote innovation in the cooperatives in terms of improving employees’ competences and services, quality certification, communication. All together the staff working in the associated cooperatives is 3400 professionals. In Co&so there is a special office working just on European funding with very skilled staff who has more than 10 years of experience in the field. Areas of activities in which the CO&SO and its cooperatives provide their services are:
Co&So has been Quality Certified to the following EU Standards: ISO9001:2015; ISO14001:2015:BS18001:2007.
Centrum Wspierania Edukacji i Przedsiebiorczosci operates from 2004 conducting activities related to the support and promotion of modern education and entrepreneurship, scientific research and consulting, conducting training, publishing, marketing, consulting and advertising activities. The Association provides services to support education through the implementation of transnational education projects aimed at young people and the organization of training. It also runs a consulting support for companies operating in the Subcarpathian region and Lesser Poland region and implements investment projects aimed at improving the quality of business support services. The Association is active in the field of science, expressed in the commitment to research projects and conducting its own analyzes of society.
Instalofi Levante S.L. (FyG Consultores) is a private, high-level training enterprise, pioneers in co-creation with companies, adults and young people in the training on innovative concepts, business creation, employability basic skills, literacy and numeracy skills, entrepreneurship and soft and hard skills training.
FyG acts actively as an education and training company, promoting and enhancing the development of adults, seeing for new opportunities and helping them to become more employable, facing different factors of exclusion: youngsters and adults with educational difficulties, unemployed with economic or social obstacles.
FyG has experience in running a wide range of trainings courses and mentoring programmes for companies, entrepreneurs, Start-Ups, also with individuals from disadvantage groups. It acts a body providing career guidance, professional counselling and information providing services of job insertion and intermediation on the labour market for unemployed as: orientation, training, assessment and information.
In recent years, FyG has developed and implement a number of European international cooperation projects with Erasmus+ and COSME programme, dealing with enterprise creation and development, employability, management, Start Ups training, internationalization, Gamification and Innovation of the Entrepreneurial Training.
Munster Technological University is a multi-campus technological university, contributing to the region through the provision of academic programmes that support student development and opportunities, education and research. MTU has an extensive and impressive regional footprint with six campuses across the South-West region in Cork and Kerry, a student body of 18,000, offering more than 140 programmes and with numerous links with colleges worldwide. The aim of MTU is to provide education and research opportunities for career-focused learners and to develop long term partnerships with industry and community. Through partnering with industry and community, MTU will seek out dynamic cross-sector relationships with start-ups, innovators and industry leading companies. MTU will continue to invest in the future with state-of-the-art research, education, enterprise, cultural and sports facilities.
Polish Chamber of Commerce (PCC) founded in 1990 is the largest economic self-government institution in Poland. We group above 154 business organizations.
PCC promotes social responsibility of business. Our trainings and conferences encourage to implement the highest standards of business ethics. During the last 10 years we completed almost 50 projects financed from EU funds related to entrepreneurship and business development.
PCC cares about entrepreneurs in the international arena. PCC is a member of EUROCHAMBRES, Association of the European Chambers of Industry and Commerce, which groups the European chambers of commerce, and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris. PCC also cooperates with the biggest worldwide national organizations.
PCC does its best to increase the international recognition of Poland. PCC is aware of chances that Polish companies will have on the international markets if Poland is perceived more positively. That is why PCC organizes national exhibitions (Hanover, Aichi), invites entrepreneurs to international trade, fairs, trade missions, economic forums, multi and bilateral business meetings and other projects.
LABC is a company based in Torino (IT). LABC is a learning community, aiming to share and build upon the experience of professionals in the field of individual and community wellness, group-work, education and training, reintegration into labour market, project management.
LABC is enriched by pan-European collaborations, always adopting and promoting the principles of:
– collaborative learning: we exchange, improve and share experiences, resources and skills, in order to optimize international and intermodal collaborations, develop and transfer of methodologies and praxis
– generativity: we establish, support and guide the ability to create, generate and produce new psychological, social and educational tools, models and praxis, with the aim of spreading them freely throughout the community
LABC is active and experienced in:
EUROSIM 2.0 uses as its point of departure the EUROSIM 1.0 platform, an online serious game for language and culture learning where 150 e-learning lessons are combined with 30 realistic 3D computer game environments depicting actual places in the partner countries. Here learners have to learn the language and culture of a partner language by practising their oral proficiency via speech recognition in the e-learning section and then applying that knowledge in a realistic 3D environment in interaction with in-game characters. Whereas the target group for EUROSIM 1.0 was adults, EUROSIM 2.0 targets learners aged 13 - 19 and their teachers. The aim of EUROSIM 2.0 is to create a cooperative and collaborative learning environment building on top of EUROSIM 1.0 by developing an Artificial Intelligence mechanism that will guide the learners and teachers toward relevant materials, while simultaneously adjusting the degree of difficulty of the material to match the learner's needs, and, to implement at multi-player functionality that will require learners to work together in order to complete the games.
1) Integrating Artificial Intelligence into the 150 VIFIN Course Creator (Own content management system) e-learning materials, so that the learner curriculum constantly adapts to the learner, in- or decreasing the level of difficulty, or changing/guiding the learner to the subject matter that is most relevant to the learner, as well as providing a monitoring tool displaying the learner results and path.
2) Developing 30 3D multi-player scenarios (cooperation and collaboration as in Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft and similar), so that learners, in pairs, both have to interact verbally and culturally with the in-game characters via the built-in speech recognition system, but also have to work together with friends, classmates, or other foreign learners in order to complete the in-game missions and move on in the game. In this way, learners have to interact in, in a specifically designed way, with the chosen foreign language with in-game characters, while also interacting with friends in their mother tongue, or ad-libbing with complete foreigners in a potential third language (lingua franca). Existing scenarios will be adapted and redesigned where possible and according to needs, but at least one entirely new 3D environment will be created - a HUB where learners meet and partner up with other players before starting the game, in this case, the EU Parliament.
The platform will be tested on 300 learners and teachers over a 4-month period and it is expected that the results will show an increase in learner motivation and an increase in learning uptake as well as a positive indication by teachers concerning the usability of the tool and that it augments them in their role.
EUROSIM 2.0 will be freely available to individual users as well as teachers and learning institutions so learning can take place anywhere, anytime, a learner has time, energy, and a desire to learn. It is expected that in the long term a tool of this type will be an extremely valuable asset in aim of increasing multilingualism within the EU.
The primary target group of the project are adults in education, specifically migrant learners.
The secondary target group is anybody interested in learning a foreign language.
To ensure a successful implementation, the project has been structured with seven phases which are closely connected to the development and evaluation of intellectual outputs. It will be carried out through the 24-month project period:
Operates in the regional area of Piedmont with a General Direction and 17 vocational training centres located in each province. The main objective is to enhance human resources and the most significant areas are training, guidance, consultancy, support in the professional insertion and job creation. We offer tools and means to design the most suitable opportunities for personal and professional development. We believe in the central role of each individual and we support the use of knowledge, technology, and technique, to fully operate into society and the labour market. Each project is created with two key elements, professionalism and reliability, and attention is given to integration and equal opportunity issues. Know, know-how and know-how to represent the three pillars of our vocational training.
Is a non-profit educational institute in Leipzig, Germany. It is a learning institution teaching vocational, cultural, and adult education. It is accredited by TÜV as education provider according to AZAV principles (employment activities for the Federal Employment Office) and by the Office for Migration and Refugees as Integration Course Provider. In the AZAV accreditation, process the quality management system is audited on an annual basis. Wisamar has a long experience in the creation of language courses, holding of workshops on intercultural competences, ICT, and empowerment, created E-learning courses e.g. Language learning and storytelling and teach German as well as cultural skills in our language school to migrants and refugees. They have direct access to the target group.
Is adult education, vocational training, and human resources development. It has 350 employees in over 30 locations throughout Austria. It has ca 20,000 participants each year, die Berater figures amongst the largest private educational institutes in Austria and was awarded the state award for adult education. It also conducts courses for the Austrian Employment Service to motivate and qualify people to make full use of their potentials in the economy, at the labour market and in their personal lives. die Berater’s New Media department develops educational architectures, provides tailor-made e-learning and mobile learning solutions and producesstate of the art e-learning content.
Is a knowledge and research centre at the Municipality of Vejle established in 2002 to collect and process knowledge on integration, and to develop and implement integration projects and activities. It creates, disseminates, and mainstreams good practice on integration and social development at the local, regional, national, and international levels with the vision to be the leader in knowledge building, dialogue and innovation on integration and development.
Greece, Vardakeios
Is a language school and is experienced in organising language seminars for immigrants who want to learn Greek, to help them find a job and also to integrate into the local society. The institute also organises seminars for local people who want to learn or improve English or want to learn a second foreign language. They have access to the project’s target groups.
Offers full-time and part-time courses from foundation level, to certificate, degree, post-graduate, and doctoral level. It has two campuses, and a community of over 3,500 students and over 250 academic staff, consisting of a diverse mix of home, EU, and overseas students. MTU has been at the forefront of learning and has gained a reputation as a centre of distinction for teaching, learning and research. The staff has many national and international networks that would be suitable to disseminate the core ideas of this project. They also have access to the target group. MTU oversees the evaluation of the games.
Is a learning institution, providing education and training for children, youth, and adults (often with a migrant background) in form of language courses, digital/ computer courses, and key competence training to improve employability. Through its language and integration courses, the Centre is working in close collaboration with local and regional administration. The Centre has direct access to target groups.
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C-MAP is a project co-funded by Erasmus+ program under the KA202 - Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training that aims to aid team leaders, mangers and organisations to improve the performance of teams and individuals utilising a new coaching methodology called C-MAPs.
The project will help VET teachers and trainers to enable team leaders and managers in Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Bulgaria to implement effective work-based coaching, applying the intellectual outputs (IO), developed under the C-MAP project (January 2020 – December 2021).
It is expected that over 600 individuals and organisations will benefit from involvement with the project, being directly made aware of the project's results and impact with the aim of impacting on a further 5,000 indirectly via publicity and dissemination activities.
• To develop and test a new work-based coaching methodology, VET Curriculum and course (IO1);
• To develop and test a new VET toolkit Coaching MAPS (IO2): a Coaching MAP is a visual aide setting out key coaching questions and a coaching journey to address a work-based problem or challenge enabling team leaders and managers improve performance and productivity.
• To publish and distribute a new Handbook for Work-based Coaches (IO3) showcasing good practice and how to use the C-MAP methodology.
The C-MAP project team is keen to make relevant information and the findings of its project available to the representatives of the three main project's target groups – potential project participants:
Target Group 1: VET teacher/trainers (x 12 participants). They will attend a Teaching, Learning and Training activity (C1) equipping them with the knowledge and competences to train 70 participants (team leaders and managers) to use the C-MAP methodology and C-MAP Toolkit in their own workplace.
Target Group 2: Team leaders and managers (x 70 participants) will learn how to use the C-MAP methodology and C-MAP Toolkit within their own organisations to improve the performance of their teams and team members and to build/strengthen a coaching culture.
Target Group 3: Other VET actors and stakeholders such as VET centres, high and further education establishments, Awarding Bodies and policy-making organisations such as Enterprise Partnerships.
Munster Technological University
MTU.ie
Exponential Training & Assessment Limited
ExponentialTraining.com
Mindshift Talent Advisory lda
Mindshift.pt
Learning Hub Friesland
LearningHubFriesland.nl
Varna Economic Development Agency
Veda-bg.eu
Consorzio Friuli Formazione
Friuliformazione.it
Current healthcare training relies upon a comprehensive understanding of the bio-medical model of medicine. However, it has been recognised that a curriculum that incorporates a more rounded model is crucial. To explore a new model of healthcare education, storytelling can become a crucial tool for educators to show the hidden and silent stories of patients, healthcare professionals, loved ones, and vulnerable people. At the same time Europe faces increased demand for health services due to ageing populations, rising patient mobility, and a diminishing supply of health workers caused by retirement rates that surpass recruitment rates. This changing reality creates an even greater need for the health workforce to understand and value humanism.
StoryAidEU aims to “humanise healthcare education through storytelling”. This will be achieved by producing a course book, learning tools such as videos and interactive lectures that all healthcare professionals can access. Storytelling can be used to ensure a holistic approach to healthcare professionals’ education and this project aims to build a truly interprofessional approach to humanising healthcare education through storytelling. Storytelling is best used in an interdisciplinary environment which this project will foster by creating an innovative multi-professional, inter-stakeholder approach to bridge the gap between current educational models and a more holistic model for the future
The project will conduct (through a number of data gathering techniques) a full review of interprofessional education tools from across the globe, an assessment of humanism policies and procedures on a macro and micro level in Europe, and conduct essential research into how storytelling approaches can be used to improve healthcare education training. These three areas will be combined to create a dedicated educational curriculum for healthcare educators to promote humanism in healthcare through the production of a coursebook, learning videos and an interactive lecture which can all be used in multiple training settings.
The StoryAidEU project runs from October 2019 To September 2021.
International Network for Health Workforce Education, Spain
Agenfor Italia, Italy
Munster Technological University, Ireland
Robert Gordon University, United Kingdom
StoryAid UK, United Kingdom
Vysoka Skola Zdravotnicka, Czech Republic
Wyzsza Szkola Ekonomii, Prawa i Nauk Medycznych im. prof. Edwarda Lipinskiego w Kielcach, Poland
You can visit www.storyaid.eu to see our latest news and products or attend our Final Conference to be held in Barcelona in 2021.
The Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Teaching
Concept Analysis for Humanism in Healthcare
Two Theories of Storytelling in Healthcare
The concept of internationalisation in the professional operations of SMEs is often approached without previous preparation or adequate strategies. Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI) and Vocation Education and Training (VET) providers are available for support, but most of them are not properly equipped with the requisite knowledge and tools for internationalisation.
The ISO project aims to create a new professional role, the Internationalisation Service Officer – and prepare the CCI and VET professionals who are working directly with the SMEs operating in the business areas of trading and services.
To develop and pilot:
• A training manual for future Internationalisation Service Officer professionals
• A set of videocasts with SMEs’ representatives to share their experience of internationalisation
• A self-assessment and training app to support start-ups
To promote dissemination actions, engage stakeholders and organise final conferences in all participating countries.
Poland - www.rig.katowice.pl
Greece - www.ebeh.gr
Spain - www.cenfim.org
Portugal - www.aeva.eu
Italy - www.ifelcampania.it
Poland - www.danmar-computers.com.pl
Ireland - www.mtu.ie
The project “IRENE – Increase the empowerment of adults and migrants with specific learning disorders” uses virtual technologies and realities to try help adults learn a foreign language. Partners from seven European countries (Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain) are collaborating to develop and test an innovative methodology and create an E-learning multilingual interactive platform at a transnational level.
The project’s cohort are adults between 18 and 35 years old who experience learning difficulties and are therefore discouraged to learn a foreign language. The project will support these adults undertaking a ‘second opportunity’ to learn outside the traditional school paths. Language teachers will be provided with didactic and methodological tools and will be trained to improve their skills when working with people with learning difficulties.
The IRENE project intends to fill the knowledge gaps through the production of three main outputs:
- Comparative research of existing teaching methodologies in the partner countries.
- Didactic approach introducing a model to develop learning content and guidelines.
- E-learning platform offering playful and stimulating modes for language learning. The platform will be structured in four separate sections: pronunciation; study; exploration and learning together.
• Perform a comparative research and desk analysis on how teaching of foreign languages to people with learning difficulties is managed in the different contexts of the countries involved.
• Design of a curriculum defining which contents (materials, exercises, storyboard) should be included in the four different modules of the E-learning platform
• Design and develop the E-learning platform.
• Organize short-term staff training events in Denmark to train teachers how to exploit the resources of the E-learning platform and its applicability to motivate adults with learning difficulties to learn in a different way.
• Organize multiplier events in partner countries to present the project outcomes to stakeholders and a wide audience.
The project is running from September 1st 2018 till August 31st 2021.
For more information on the project, please contact:
Munster Technological University Kerry
Kristin Brogan
Kristin.Brogan@mtu.ie
Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world. In the EU alone, tourism contributes 10% to GDP and creates jobs for 26 million people!
Tourism 4 Careers aims to promote the industry and the fast number of careers and opportunities available. The following two interactive and educational online units.
The partnership will develop the following two interactive and educational online units (e-learning resources):
- Introduction to Tourism
- Careers in Hospitality and Tourism
A prototype of the two e-learning resources (http://tourisminsight.ie/) has been developed by the Institute of Technology Tralee and hospitality partners in Ireland including the Irish Hospitality Institute, Failte Ireland, the Irish Hotels Federation as well as other national associations and hotels. The units provide valuable tourism insights to secondary schools students, VET students and other learners, informing them of career options within the tourism industry.
Careers in Hospitality and Tourism provide valuable tourism insights to secondary school’s students, VET students and other learners, informing them of career options within the tourism industry. The resources give awareness of what life in the tourism and hospitality industry is really like, allowing them to make an informed career choice.
Munster Technological University (Ireland, coordinator)
Irish Hospitality Institute (Ireland)
University of Plovdiv Paisii Hilendarski (Bulgaria)
Srednja sola za gostinstvo in turizem Celje (Slovenia)
Istituto dlstruzione Superiore di Ceccano (Italy)
Stichting Business Development Friesland (The Netherlands)
Mardin Artuklu Halk Egitim Merkezi ve Aksam Sanat Okulu (Turkey)
Klaipedos Turizmo Mokykla (Lithuania) - Danmar Computers LLC (Poland)
Vysokå Skola regionålniho rozvoje a Bankovni institut - AMBIS, a.s. (Czech Republic)
Newsletter 4 Tourism 4 Careers
Teachers of Tomorrow is a 2-year Erasmus+ project that develops an innovative competence profile for teachers and develops new future-oriented methods as well as teaching and learning materials / tools. This creates a framework / training curriculum that relates to the competence profile and at the same time picks up on changes in society (e.g. migration movement)
The project relies on an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach. It is a project of science, society and practice that is closely linked to the process of the European Union.
It is about a high-quality qualification of teachers and the socio-cultural and emotional participation and part of marginalized groups in society in the educational process , a dialogue-based, systematic knowledge transfer.
Adult education teachers in regular schools, educational counselling centres, coaching area and teachers with a migrant background.
MTU Kerry (Ireland), the Foundation Fazio-Allmayer of Palermo (Italy), the Theater Association Teatro due mondi (Italy), the Adult Education Center VHS Simmering/Vienna (Austria), the Adult Education Center vhs Pforzheim-Enzkreis (Germany)
INTERMOVE FOR TRAINERS project aims to further extend the innovative training pathway developed by the INTERMOVE model, which addresses institutions active in international mobility projects for education and training purposes in order to help them prepare customised pre-departure and upon-arrival preparation while combining two topics: intercomprehension of languages and intercultural competences. This aim will be achieved thanks to the development of a specialized training for trainers’ programme which will qualify trainers and mentors in partner organisations as INTERMOVE facilitators as well as experts able to train other organisations active in mobility projects and to recognise them with the INTERMOVE Label through the development of a solid Network.
INTERMOVE FOR TRAINERS is based on the innovative methodology and excellent results obtained by previous project – INTERMOVE – developed between 2015 and 2017, also within the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme (http://intermove.eu/en/home/). INTERMOVE combined the intercultural preparation of participants in mobility experiences with the use of intercomprehension in a blended training pathway that included French, English, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish as targeting languages.
Thanks to INTERMOVE, trainers and mentors were given access to innovative tools that have allowed them to incorporate a methodology based on an approach that combined intercomprehension and interculturality.
Following this model, INTERMOVE FOR TRAINERS will focus on developing more comprehensive learning contents, addressing the expert trainers that will recognize third institutions and facilitators, as the system has been already successfully tested and currently implemented with participants.
• Increasing the quality of the preparation and, then, of the performance of participants in mobility actions.
• Boosting cooperation among national institutions through INTERMOVE Network.
• Contributing to the improvement of the VET system through the empowerment of trainers’ competences in intercomprehension and interculturality.
• Defining innovative, shared and modular learning outcomes and resources related to intercultural competences and intercomprehension, that will boost the use of those variables among local stakeholders.
• Activities Creating Open Educational Resources in diverse European Languages validated by a multinational consortium.
• Raising awareness about the importance of the preparation for the success of the mobility experience.
• Promoting intercomprehension of languages as a tool for a better intercultural understanding.
• Design and development of INTERMOVE training for trainers specialized programme, including the preparation of contents related to the main topics of the project: intercomprehension and intercultural approach.
• Implementation of transnational training sessions for trainers from partner institutions.
• Setting up of INTERMOVE Network and development of its structure, mission and secretariat.
• Preparation and delivery of training to third organisations from partner countries.
• Recognition of trained organisations that will be awarded with the INTERMOVE label, allowing them to belong to INTERMOVE network.
Due to the drastic growth in migration and the very significant increase in the movements of people across countries, intercultural awareness is becoming more and more essential. It is still neither common nor popular to teach interculturality in VET.
This project offers an easy access to tools in the area of intercultural learning and provides training materials, including instructions on how to apply theory to intercultural training.
LEAP – Learn, Engage, Apply and Perform is a Strategic Partnerships project for Vocational Education and Training under the Erasmus+ programme.
The LEAP project intends to create a ‘step change’ in the use of ePortfolios as process-based pedagogical tool to improve learner and VET provider performance. It will exploit Digital Badges including open digital badges to create an engaging learning process leading to improved performance by learners and teacher/trainers. During the time of implementation of LEAP the following outputs will be delivered:
From 1st of September 2017 to 31st of August 2020.
United Kingdom, Exponential Training & Assessment [Coordinator]
Cyprus, Dekaplus
Austria, BEST Institut für berufsbezogene Weiterbildung und Personaltraining GmbH
Portugal, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade
Ireland, Munster Technological University
Greece, Best Cybernetics
1. Teachers/trainers
2. Learners
3. VET/HE/FE Centres
4. Partners
5. European business community
6. VET Policy stakeholders
The International Labour Organization ranked medical professions as the second most vulnerable to violence in the workplace. This view is supported by the consortium’s pre-project research which saw a questionnaire disseminated to key stakeholders and received over 1000 responses. Results showed that only 5.9% respondents with previous patient contact said that they had never been verbally assaulted by patients and 62.5% were victims of physical assault by patients at least once.
The chief goal of the project is to improve the workplace safety of healthcare professionals by increasing their skills and competences in dealing with difficult situations. To achieve this the project consortium will design and develop a complex multi-stakeholder, inter-disciplinary course for healthcare students, predominantly focused at paramedics and nurses. The didactic materials and project’s intellectual outputs will also be accessible to the rest of the health workforce such as physicians and physiotherapists.
The project will develop an educational course which will result in an increase in the conflict management skills and knowledge of healthcare professionals. The course will create a uniform, comprehensive and complete programme applicable to all partner countries of the consortium, while also being adaptable enough for use in the rest of Europe and beyond. The majority of educational materials will be available online, free of charge, in the form of multimedia interactive materials realised in a Moodle format.
The SAFEMEDIC project runs from November 2018 to October 2020.
• Wyzsza Szkola Ekonomii, Prawa i Nauk Medycznych im. prof. Edwarda Lipinskiego w Kielcach, Poland
• International Network for Health Workforce Education, Spain
• Munster Technological University, Ireland
• Vysoka Skola Zdravotnicka, Czech Republic
• Alma Mater Europaea-Evropski Center, Slovenia
• Kauno Kolegija/ University of Applied Sciences, Lithuania
"The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein."
CORE project focuses on making improvements on the existing qualifications by identifying them in partner countries, improving them and matching a new joint curriculum. The project priorities are to make skills and competences more visible and comparable between different European countries.
At the same time, the project will increase the quality of education with a strong work-based component that also embeds OER learning and virtual transnational connections into the cook’s qualification. The aim is to improve the participating students’ international competences and language skills. Simultaneously the whole hospitality industry in Europe benefits from the project results as the professional cook’s competence and skills entity is identified, described and implemented in the European level.
This project is focused on developing a pilot version of a new virtual 360° web page featuring cook's competences, where all study programmes / specialisations are opened. The learning outcomes will be made as transparent as possible by using OER (e.g. open badges) approach for competences needed in the profession.
The primary target groups are students and teachers in VET as well as company representatives in the restaurant and catering sector.
28.12.2018 — 27.12.2020
Oona Haapakorpi/Mika Heino, Omnia
Coordination: Omnia, Finland
Partners: Vamia (Finland), Ikaslan Gipuzkoa (Spain), Munster Technological University MTU (Ireland), Tartu Vocational College TKHK (Estonia)
Erasmus+ KA3 (European Commission)
https://cookingforthefuture.net
https://www.facebook.com/Cookingforthefuture/
The EU policy on multilingualism supports the aspiration to be united in diversity. Languages can build bridges between people. giving us access to other countries and cultures and enabling us to understand each other better.
Hunt For Europe (HFE) uses a digital immersive language learning platform, using content integrated language learning method. The learning environment is an interactive, browser-based, language- and culture learning platform, which enables the learner to quickly acquire spoken language competency and cultural understanding via increased individual focus and the possibility of self-study. The platform is a Serious Games category development and integrates an interactive learning environment coupled with Automatic Speech Recognition where the learner acquires the necessary language- and culture skills which are subsequently practised and employed in a realistic 3D environment. It can be used in-class in a blended learning environment where the learners can practise under careful supervision, or it can be accessed online by the learner anytime, anywhere the learner wishes to continue practising pronunciation and a spoken language in the 3D world or the interactive lessons.
1) The SKILL BUILDER SECTION which teaches both the pronunciation of single words as well as sentences and the culture information relevant to the various environments covered in the 3D sections. This section will also contain interactive exercises and quizzes, focusing on both perception and production issues, ensuring that the student has mastered the material.
2) 6 different but connected 3D ENVIRONMENTS, each one representing and depicting a culturally significant area of a partner country, in which the learner must perform a givenassignment. The overall storyline of the game-part is the discovery of the cultural identity of Europe.
The primary target group of the project are ADULTS in general – both European citizens, either in jobs, unemployed, NEETS, and migrants and refugees.
A secondary target are the TEACHERS of adult learners in language schools
To ensure a successful implementation, the project has been structured with six phases which are closely connected to the development and evaluation of intellectual outputs. It will be carried out through the 24-month project period:
1) Curriculum Design & Story & Games Development
2) Technical Development and Implementation & Digital Handbook
3) Evaluation of the platform
4) Quality Assurance Plan, Evaluation Plan and Checklist
5) Development of dissemination plan
6) Multiplier events - A final Conference
7) Local Multiplier Events
Italy, Enaip Piemonte
Operates in the regional area of Piedmont with a General Direction and 17 vocational training centres located in each province. The main objective is to enhance human resources and the most significant areas are training, guidance, consultancy, support in the professional insertion and job creation. We offer tools and means to design the most suitable opportunities for personal and professional development. We believe in the central role of each individual and we support the use of knowledge, technology and technique, to fully operate into society and the labour market. Each project is created with two key elements, professionalism and reliability, and attention is given to integration and equal opportunity issues. Know, know-how and know-how to represent the three pillars of our vocational training.
Germany, Wisamar
Is a non-profit educational institute in Leipzig, Germany. It is a learning institution teaching vocational, cultural and adult education. It is accredited by TÜV as education provider according to AZAV principles (employment activities for the Federal Employment Office) and by the Office for Migration and Refugees as Integration Course Provider. In the AZAV accreditation, process the quality management system is audited on an annual basis. Wisamar has a long experience in the creation of language courses, holding of workshops on intercultural competences, ICT and empowerment, created E-learning courses e.g. Language learning and storytelling and teach German as well as cultural skills in our language school to migrants and refugees. They have direct access to the target group.
Austria, Die Berather
Is adult education, vocational training and human resources development. It has 350 employees in over 30 locations throughout Austria. It has ca 20,000 participants each year, die Berater figures amongst the largest private educational institutes in Austria and was awarded the state award for adult education. It also conducts courses for the Austrian Employment Service to motivate and qualify people to make full use of their potentials in the economy, at the labour market and in their personal lives. die Berater’s New Media department develops educational architectures, provides tailor-made e-learning and mobile learning solutions and producesstate of the art e-learning content.
Is a knowledge and research centre at the Municipality of Vejle established in 2002 to collect and process knowledge on integration, and to develop and implement integration projects and activities. It creates, disseminates and mainstreams good practice on integration and social development at the local, regional, national and international levels with the vision to be the leader in knowledge building, dialogue and innovation on integration and development.
Is a language school and is experienced in organising language seminars for immigrants who want to learn Greek, to help them find a job and also to integrate in to the local society. The institute also organises seminars for local people who want to learn or improve English or want to learn a second foreign language. They have access to the project’s target groups.
Munster Technological University is a multi-campus technological university, contributing to the region through the provision of academic programmes that support student development and opportunities, education and research. MTU has an extensive and impressive regional footprint with six campuses across the South-West region in Cork and Kerry, a student body of 18,000, offering more than 140 programmes and with numerous links with colleges worldwide. The aim of MTU is to provide education and research opportunities for career-focused learners and to develop long term partnerships with industry and community. Through partnering with industry and community, MTU will seek out dynamic cross-sector relationships with start-ups, innovators and industry leading companies. MTU will continue to invest in the future with state-of-the-art research, education, enterprise, cultural and sports facilities.
Is a learning institution, providing education and training for children, youth and adults (often with a migrant background) in form of language courses, digital/ computer courses and key competence training to improve employability. Through its language and integration courses, the Centre is working in close collaboration with local and regional administration. The Centre has direct access to target groups.
If you are a member of security staff working in the police service, as a border guard or at the entrance point of a shelter for migrants and refugees the VOCAL IN NEED resources can help you to better interact with migrants, refugees and other foreign nationals who do not speak your language.
If you are a job coach / counsellor / educator / trainer working at an NGO or a non-profit organisation the VOCAL IN NEED resources will help you to overcome language and cultural challenges when dealing with migrants and refugees in situations where otherwise the help of an interpreter would be necessary.
If you are the manager of an agency offering services for migrants and refugees the VOCAL IN NEED online tools can help your staff mem-bers to improve their communication skills when dealing with people with different cultu-ral and linguistic background.
Please contact us to receive further informa-tion about the project:https://vocal.erasmus.site
The recent refugee crisis and increa-sing mobility both between EU member states and from other parts of the world poses a great challenge to security and agencies who are con-fronted with people with different cultural backgrounds and who do not speak the local language.
The VOCAL IN NEED project aims to bridge this linguistic and cultural gap by providing an online training course and an app for smartphones to better interact with migrants and refugees in the following contexts:
The partnership has identified the following situations where the language and intercultural competences of security and agency staff should be improved:
The VOCAL IN NEED partners will develop, for example, the following results during the project lifetime:
The VOCAL IN NEED project runs from October 2017 to September 2019.
In this period, the partners-hip will develop online training and an app for smartphones.
Which Languages?
The VOCAL IN NEED training materials will be available in the following languages:
Arabic, Bulgarian, English, German, Italian, Lithua-nian, Russian, Turkish.
“This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication and all its contents reflect the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held respon-sible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.”
The core idea of the project Eco-SmaRT is to encourage local societies to get interested in eco-tourism. Our target groups are adults who decide on their mode to travel, travel agencies or companies providing tourism services (e.g. hotels and B&B) or local governments that have an influence on the development and exploitation of natural resources. We hope that the project will provide plenty of opportunity to encourage discussion and to have real influence on fostering sustainable development in tourism.
Adult learners, teachers, tutors, trainers from partners' countries will have an occasion to gain theoretical knowledge, and work together during blended-learning activities on case studies and provide other participants with their experience.
Further stakeholders are:
The objectives of the project are:
The main activities during the duration of the project will be:
If your institution wishes to join the project as a local partner please contact the project partner in your country and sign the le er of support. If you wish to join the project as a participant and be involved in the meeting of the local group and training please fill in participation form available on the project website and send via email to the contact person.
Developing a Project Management Tool for SMEs.
The IPEC consortium is build up from a strong network of partners from different EU countries, all having extended experience and expertise on the topics of Project Management Methodologies and Gamification.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This project reflects the views only of the author and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained herein.
IPEC will become the Project Management Tool small and micro companies are excited about to use. IPEC makes the hard stuff in life fun!
IPEC stands for Initiate, Plan, Execute and Close. The IPEC project plans to develop a new microlite Project Management methodology, based on the needs of small and micro enterprises and using the IPEC cycle: Initiate, Plan, Execute and Close. Not only will IPEC develop this project management methodology, it will do so by applying Gamification. Gamification uses the typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.
By combining Project Management practices, ‘state of the art’ gamification technology and the latest blended learning techniques and practices, Project IPEC provides a solution that contributes to improved SME productivity and effective use of Project Management within young smaller enterprises and builds VET centre capability to support the use of micro-lite Project Management.
Visit our website here
‘Micro-sized and small companies need less bureaucratic more people-focused forms of Project Management, to facilitate the work of teams of generalists. Especially start-ups set up by individuals from Generation Y will be triggered by a gamification project management model.’
John Moore, Exponential Training UK
CES&L Project – Languages 4 Work
Agreement number 2015-1-IE02-KA203-000420
Supporting Language Graduates into successful careers.
Cooperation between students, academics, career services and graduate employers.
This project aims to enhance language students’ employability by engaging them in work related activities as part of their academic studies so they can optimize their career opportunities after graduation.
The CES&L project team is working with employers across Europe to seek their views on how HEI can support their students to be more employable and recognize the significance of their modern languages degree in today’s international job market. The views of the employers will shape the workshops which means the material will be up-to-date, and relevant tailored for each of the member countries. The main aim of this project is transferring the generic AHECS (Association of Higher Education Careers Services in Ireland) Employability module into the different target languages of international European partners and customize it for HE students of languages.
The current employability module that will be adapted consists of 8 workshops including introductions and aims for each workshop, comprehensive facilitator notes, clear methods, activities and timings, easy-to-use materials (activity sheets), learning outcomes and assessment strategies available both for in class and online work.
9 project partners in 7 countries:
Plur>E is a follow-on project from the ECML PlurCur project run within the Learning through Languages Programme from 2012-2015. The goal of the Plur>E project is to further develop the concept of a plurilingual, inclusive and intercultural whole school policy in secondary education in an international context. Partner schools from five European countries develop language-based projects and will implement and assess them based on the concept of plurilingual whole school curricula. The main target groups are learners and teachers, but the Plur>E project also involves school management and policymakers.
For more information on the PlurCur project go to the ECML website and look at the PlurCur website.
A plurilingual, inclusive and intercultural whole school policy embraces all languages present at a given school: majority and minority, regional, heritage and neighbouring languages. Languages as subjects are taught in an inclusive way; language and non-language instruction overlap so that all subject teaching can also become language teaching. The languages used are those already present at a given institution. This can either mean that schools offer additional language courses in the students’ family languages and/or that teachers encourage learners to use the languages they bring to the school in their subjects for clarification, deeper understanding, exchange etc.
Classrooms all over Europe are becoming increasingly multilingual and multicultural. Teachers face the challenge of effectively incorporating the language skills that students already have into their lessons. A whole school language policy has the potential to contribute to new pedagogical and methodological approaches which could enhance the learning process of all students.
Project activities and outputs are based on current, on-going research in the fields of multilingualism/plurilingualism. Of special interest for the Plur>E project are studies on multilingual or metalinguistic awareness and the use of (foreign) languages for subject teaching (so-called CLIL approaches – content and language integrated learning). European intercomprehension, i.e. the use of prior language knowledge to learn new languages (e.g. the use of French to learn other Romance languages) is another interesting field of research that can inform Plur>E practice.
Expected outputs will include reports of the implementation of (aspects of) plurilingual whole school curricula by partner schools and best practice examples for plurilingual language-teaching collected during the lifetime of the project. Based on the experience gathered, recommendations on school development will be offered to school management and policymakers . In addition to this, Plur>E online modules for networking with existing and future partners will be created so that best practice examples can be shared with teachers, students, parents and school boards.
Partner schools
INTERMOVE project, funded within the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme, aims to prepare participants on EU mobility projects by the development and implementation of a new training pathway that will tackle two of the barriers to mobility:
What makes the INTERMOVE Training so Innovative?
Thanks to INTERMOVE, trainers will have access to innovative tools that will allow them to incorporate a methodology based on Intercomprehension and Intercultural approach. Trainers will acquire the expertise needed to prepare participants on mobility experiences, helping the latter individuals to better understand multicultural contexts and to interact in 5 different languages. This will become a reality by the implementation of:
The project work plan is organized in different activities each of which is important for the achievement of the targets set:
INCOMA, Spain (Coordinator)
Cap Ulysse, France
IFOA, Italy
Munster Technological University, Ireland
Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal
This Project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Kristin Brogan- View Full Profile
EU project co-ordinator
Email:Kristin.Brogan@staff.ittralee.ie