Assessment and enhancement of vocational language skills in the wellness sector Erasmus Project

Project Title

Assessment and enhancement of vocational language skills in the wellness sector

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Recognition, transparency, certification

Project Summary

One of the major economic activities of the European Union is the tourism sector. It has an extansive impact on economic growth, employment and social development. Nevertheless the tourism sector faces a series of challenges, e.g. difficulty of finding and keeping skilled staff or growing demand for customised experiences, new products and growing competition from other EU destinations.
In June 2010, the European Commission adopted the Communication, “Europe, the world’s No. 1 tourist destination – a new political framework for tourism in Europe”. This communication set out a new strategy and action plan for EU tourism focusing on improving the range of tourism products and services as well as enhancing tourism quality, sustainability, accessibility, skills and ICT use.
According to the European Regions Research and Innovation Networks more attention should be given to up-skilling tourism workers and a formal recognition and validation of skills at national and European levels. This holds especially true to where cross boarder mobility is high and many tourism companies experience shortage of skilled workers with a high level of staff turnover. Finding the adequate skilled professionals, in addition to keeping skilled, motivated and knowledgeable staff is key to enhance the competitiveness of companies in the industry sector. On the other hand, many VET learners state that there is a range of free resources to learn English in tourism, but these resources are mainly directed at the hotel sector with focus on the reception and restaurant. Hotels in popular touristic destinations have extended their offers to the wellness sector to offer their guests: manicures, pedicures and massages. Due to the fact that, hotels operate on a global market, the staff in the wellness sector work more and more with international clients and English is quite often used as a common language. Therefore, there is a high need to learn or refresh ones English. Employees in the wellness sector are in many cases not able to attend classes because they may have clients during the normal course times or a basic English course would not fit their needs since it does not focus specifically on occupational specific language. “Assessment and enhancement of vocational language skills in the wellness sector” (Assess Well) aims to train and further upgrade individuals’ competences in the wellness sector. The project consortium is made up of organisations from Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Together they endeavoured on a three year quest to develop a curriculum based on learning outcomes, language learning while taking into account various aspects of the wellness sector, for example: spa management, hygiene, care cosmetics, intercultural competences. The developed curriculum is modular in structure and includes work-based learning in regards to practical exercises like onsite workshops, job-shadowing, authentic simulations. The outcomes of this curriculum are based on research (desktop and surveys) with the target group: VET schools, providers, curriculum designers; furthering VET institutions; language teachers in VET; tourism/wellness sector employers and employees.
In correlation with the curriculum media-based language resources have been developed. They are supported with videos: dialogues focusing on communication approach and technical videos focusing on professional skills. Additionally instructional / educational video about how to use the materials has been developed. The resources include exercises to check for understanding and promote occupational specific language learning for persons who already have a beginners knowledge of English.
Building on the initial outcomes assessment tool for the recognition and validation of language skills and work-based activities in the tourisms sector, this output is two-fold as it consists of theoretical knowledge and also a testing portion which assesses learners based on their intercultural competences, ability to converse professionally with customers, ability to follow the correct steps when performing a treatment etc. The tools enable assessors to define levels of competences in the context of language and professional skills.
To validate and test the appropriateness of Assess Well, a training concept in which persons can take part in a virtual and/or physical mobility based on the curriculum and resources has been developed. The training was tailored to the persons individual skills and the training took place during the project’s lifetime with at least 15 persons for five-days in the UK, plus persons testing the Assess Well via virtual mobility and class activities. An assessment of the skills was done before and after the mobility to demonstrate the benefits of such a training. All Assess Well materials are available on the website www.assesswell.eu The final thoughts and outcomes were celebrated and shared with key stakeholders in each of the partner countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 313216,46 Eur

Project Coordinator

VOLKSHOCHSCHULE IM LANDKREIS CHAM EV & Country: DE

Project Partners

• EOI DO MUNDO LUME
• UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON
• Ayuntamiento de Ayamonte
• Monte Patino Società Cooperativa