Cultural and Language program for the Rhine and Inlandshipping Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Cultural and Language program for the Rhine and Inlandshipping 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 addressing more than one field

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Projectcontext:
Boatsmen/ master in the Inland Navigation industry is increasingly becoming a highly international profession, with workers from many different (cultural) backgrounds. Besides the fact that this makes it an interesting area of work, it also carries along some challenges, amongst others with respect to these different cultures and backgrounds. Too many accidents, a large amount of them due to errors in communication, still happen on the European Inland Waterway’s: in between vessels, but also amongst the crew of a single vessel and personal accidents. These facts call for other, adapted competences for our students. The partners in this project are all part of a big community, better known as EDINNA (www.edinna.eu). Directors/management of 31 inland waterway transport educational institutes from 18 different countries are member of EDINNA, however the teachers of those institutes don’t actually know each other. Communication and safety is one of the main reasons EDINNA developed EDINNA Riverspeak and is therefore suitable to be used within the CLIS-Project. Riverspeak is an ensemble of jargon and nautical terms that are being used in the inland navigation. Riverspeak is designed to have one communication language in inland navigation (English).

Objectives:
– To develop a course in general Safety in Inland Navigation on (pre) vocational level, consisting of the following topics: Cultural awareness, Standardised communication phrases in English to be used on and in between vessels, competences with respect to personal safety, risks assessment, accident prevention, prevention of collission, first aid, men over board procedures, etc.
– For students and teachers to experience and learn from cooperation and communication in (online) intercultural teams,
– To create, develop and expand intercultural and international professional and personal networks for both students as teachers
– To expand an international network and international contacts as part of the strategy of STC-group

Participant number/profile:
All partners in this project are ((pre) vocational) educational institutes dealing with the education of students willing to work as boatmen/masters on European rivers. All partners, from the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Belgium, educate their students as part of the (pre- )vocational system and have similar aims: to prepare their students as best as possible to be able to navigate and work safely on European waterways, and to become well-qualified crew members. Our participants are students in Inland Shipping (15-19 years old), teachers in English, Inland Navigation and safety related topics (3 teachers per partner, approx 20 students per partner, one or two projectmanagers per partner).

Activities:
The materials have been developed in working groups of teachers, communicating through e-twinning and other online facilities. Besides projectmeetings pupil exchanges have been organised, where the course was introducted and tested, and students met each other in joint assignments. The materials will be implemented in the day to day school context, where students (amongst others) will work together in a joint assignments, in order to eventually reach the competences that our project aims for.

Methodology:
The project has been managed according the Prince2 project management principles. Prince2 is an acronym for ‘Projects in Controlled Environments’. All procedures in the Prince 2 methodology aim to control the project and to make it managable and in line with the agreements made, the overall and specific objects, all being executed in the set timeframe.

Results, impact and long term benefits:
The project has the following results:
– Intensive cooperation and knowledge exchange between students and teachers of different ages, backgrounds and cultures
– Increased self confidence, motivation and managing skills of students (because of the cooperation and teamwork/peer review)
– Increased language competences (English) for teachers as a result of the intercultural cooperation and communication
– Increased competences with respect to the personal safety on board for our students
– Increased competences with respect to the use of standardized English communication for our students
– Increased understanding and respect of/for different cultures, fading of European boundaries for students, teachers, others involved and our organisations as a whole
– A more internationally orientated focus of all partnerorganisations and an extended and more divers international network
– As a result of the intellectual output in the long term: less accidents on and between vessels in the European Inland waterways
– Increased employability of all students involved (broadening of network, job perspective and job rotation/job exchange in Europe), due to both the cultural agility/flexibility, as wel as the standardised competences in both use of standard English communication and safety handling on board/be

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 133062 Eur

Project Coordinator

STICHTING STC-GROUP & Country: NL

Project Partners

• BbS Schönebeck
• GO!De Scheepvaartschool – Cenflumarin
• Berufsschule Maschinen-, Fertigungstechnik und Elektronik