Best practices for teaching languages and managing adult language schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Best practices for teaching languages and managing adult language schools

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

The Best4Languages project relied on the needs and competence gaps underlined within an internal needs analysis conducted in 2018 and on different literature, statistics, national and European reports, the BACKGROUND of the project being characterised by: the importance of having more efficient language schools and to achieve more attractiveness in language education; school managers face some competence gaps, which could be developed by sharing best practices that other institutions use; for several national languages taught by the partner institutions the teaching materials and practices available on the market are limited.

The partnership established the following GENERAL OBJECTIVES in order to face these challenges and needs:
– to improve the competences of the language teachers and the quality and effectiveness of language teaching practices;
– to improve the competences of the language school managers about specific management issues;
– to foster the quality, innovation and internationalization of language schools by their international cooperation and exchange of practices; to improve attractiveness of language learning in Europe by making language teaching more effective and innovative.

The TARGET GROUPS of the project consisted of language teachers and teachers conducting management tasks – involved in adult education institutions. The target group was reached through training events (international and local) and via dissemination activities.
77 participants were engaged in total during joint staff training events, while local training events and meetings involved 100 additional language teachers and 65 additional teacher-trainers with managerial roles. Besides them dissemination activities reached: 290 teacher/managers via presentations during events; 9645 teachersmanagers via mailing lists or groups; 110 Handbook users; and 70 people who participated in the online workshop from the end of the project.

As regards the METHODOLOGY, the partnership implemented 5 main activities:
– Project management and quality assurance;
– Implement teacher and management staff trainings;
– Transfer and integrate the know-how;
– Creation of Handbook of Best Practices and Institutional Development Strategy;
– Dissemination activities.

Teacher training events were core activities, during the projects’ lifetime we managed to have 6 face-to-face training events and due to Covid-19 outbreak the last 4 were sustained virtually. These events were designed to develop both teachers and managers competences and were based on the specific fields, that the partner institutions found to be problematic in their institutions, but also very important for their development.
Teacher training themes covered within the project are the following: social media and mobile devices in the language classroom; e-learning & movie-making method for innovating language teaching; Interactive whiteboard for teaching languages and teaching intercultural competences within language classes; teaching culture within language classes; communicative approach in language teaching; digital stories in foreign language learning.
On the other hand the management staff training events cover the following fields: conflict management and team-building in language schools; educational leadership in language schools; marketing strategies and opening language schools to international markets; program monitoring and reporting in language schools; human resource management in language schools; managing extracurricular services.

Both the partner institutions and stakeholders outside the partnership benefited of the RESULTS & IMPACT of the project. The impact evaluation undertaken showed an impact on the teaching processes (ed. Increased level of motivation, interaction, interest of adult learners; Students declared they had more fun in the classroom; – Clients consider the services they have been offered are more qualitative; Teachers consider the learning process became more easy; Increased creativity of students; Overall a better performance of students in the classroom); on the managerial strategies (eg. better marketing strategies; renewed human resource procedures; more innovative extra-curricular services provided, better atmosphere at work, etc.). Last, but not least, the project also impacted the internationalisation of the involved institutions: 5 of the partners continued cooperating in further opportunities, while one partner released one of it’s local services at a European level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88465 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociatia Bridge Language Study House & Country: RO

Project Partners

• IBERIKA EDUCATION GROUP GGMBH
• EUROPASS SRL
• Carl Duisberg Centren
• Nista d.o.o.
• Centrum Edukacyjne EST