Digitally Integrated Language Education in VET for front-desk and service fields Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digitally Integrated Language Education in VET for front-desk and service fields

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

Being a necessity of the modern world, speaking foreign languages is also one of the key skills putting VET learners ahead as a requirement of the international job market. According to CEDEFOP, the European Council Recommendation of 2018 defines foreign language skills as one of the key competences for life-long learning. Strengthening foreign language skills in initial and continuing VET is among the European Union priorities for 2015-2020.
As a VET organization offering hospitality and catering education, fostering the professional language skills of our learners is one of the most important educational aims for our school. Being lack of language skills related to their professional field poses a huge obstacle for learners in finding job opportunities. Problems related to lacking foreign language skills are especially felt by the learners from front-desk and service departments since they are in face-to-face interaction with guests.
Before the project, we have conducted a need analysis and implemented surveys on different groups: learners in initial VET, employees in continuing VET and VET staff. The results have shown us that we need to generate new resources and content enriched with digital tools for professional language education.

The project aims to produce professional English resources on front-desk and service education for learners, employees and educators in initial and continuing VET. The project activities will serve to generate two intellectual outputs: an e-learning portal and a mobile application as open educational resources. To achieve these outputs, the project will be conducted in the partnership of five partners. Three VET schools with hospitality and catering departments will generate the pedagogical and linguistic content of the outputs. The fourth partner is a software company that will bring added value to the project by producing the technical infrastructure of the outputs. The last partner is a higher education institution with tourism and ICT departments which will act as a quality assurance unit for the project. This complementary partnership will enable the production of innovative educational resources.
The intellectual outputs will serve as open educational resources fostering professional language education with a content-based and digitally enriched approach with a focus on speaking and communication skills in English. They will fill the resource gap in professional language teaching for hospitality and tourism fields in VET.

Throughout the project, there will be three transnational meetings: a kick-off meeting in November 2020 in Turkey, a progress meeting in October 2021 in Romania and a final meeting in October 2022 in Portugal. The issues and activities related to project implementation and management will be handled in these meetings. Each partner organization will send 2 participants to each meeting. As a requirement of the meetings, participants will be assigned among the staff members taking responsibilities in project implementation and management.
Two Learning Teaching and Training activities are planned in the project. These LTT activities will bring added value to the project as they are structured in a way contributing to the production of intellectual outputs.
The first LTT activity will be held in April 2021 in Turkey. The linguistic and pedagogical content of the outputs will be completed in this activity. For this reason, 2 VET schools (from Romania and Portugal) and the higher education institution will send participants for this LTT activity. VET schools will assign two English teachers and 1 VET teacher as participants and the higher education institution will assign 1 tourism faculty member and 1 quality control member.
The second LTT will be held in May 2021 in Greece. The technical infrastructure and design of the intellectual outputs will be completed with this LTT activity. Only the higher education partner (Vısshe Uchılıshte Po Menıdzhmant) will send 4 participants into this LTT activity. Three participants will be chosen among the faculty members from the ICT department and the other participant will be an assigned quality control expert.
Multiplier events will be held by the 3 VET school partners after the finalization of intellectual outputs. They will serve as extensive dissemination activities strengthening the sustainability of the project results.

The project outcomes are supposed to affect wider target groups such as VET learners, VET and language teachers, front-desk and service employees, sectoral stakeholders, associated partners, higher education institutions with tourism departments. Therefore, dissemination activities will be conducted in an extensive manner in order to ensure the sustainability of the outputs. We believe that the partnership will achieve the project results to reach policy/decision-makers in ministerial level and this will enable the use of intellectual outputs as education materials in VET education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 123466 Eur

Project Coordinator

Şaban Temuge Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi & Country: TR

Project Partners

• VISSHE UCHILISHTE PO MENIDZHMANT
• Escola Profissional de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural de Marco de Canaveses
• Colegiul Economic “Ion Ghica” Braila
• Impuls 1 GmbH