E-Learning Novelties towards the Goal of a Universal Acquisition of Foreign and Second Languages Erasmus Project

Project Title

E-Learning Novelties towards the Goal of a Universal Acquisition of Foreign and Second Languages

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

E-Lengua is a project conducted by 6 European universities and a higher education institution belonging to a partner country, all of them with proven experience around the world in the teaching of second and foreign languages. A preliminary analysis of the current language learning situation was used to detect a series of problems for which there was no available solution.
The project has focused on two central and complementary objectives: on the one hand, meeting the challenges through measurable actions, developed synergistically and supported by the use of information and communication technology (ICT), which would have its correlate in curricular design in Europe, but also in Egypt, an education landmark in the Arabic world; and on the other hand, designing a repository of best practices of the integration of ICT into the teaching of languages than can be applied to other educational contexts. Likewise, among its cross-cutting purposes was to reach beneficiaries from different geographical locations, but, above all, of different social origin; thus, users may belong, as would be expected, to the world of academia, but also to the labour world, they can represent the lifelong education aspect or they can belong to minorities with integration problems. Finally, this unequivocally multilingual project has been underpinned by seven different languages, always ensuring that the achievements of each of them be extended to the teaching of the rest.
The seven participating institutions (one university for each of the languages dealt with in the project) are:
• University of Salamanca (Spanish, 51 million native speakers in the EU): co-ordinating institution.
• University of Bologna (Italian, 60 million native speakers in the EU)
• University of Dublin (English, 67 million native speakers in the EU)
• University of Coimbra (Portuguese, 11 million native speakers in the EU)
• University of Heidelberg (German, 100 million native speakers in the EU)
• University of Poitiers (French, 80 million native speakers in the EU)
• Non-EU partner HEI: Cairo University (Arabic, 5 million native speakers in the EU)
Some of the most widely spoken languages of western Europe have many more speakers outside the European continent than within it. This is the case with Spanish, the second most widely spoken language in the world, with 387 million speakers; English, the third most spoken language in the world with 365 million native speakers; Arabic, the fifth most spoken language in the world with 280 million native speakers and an international community of ever-growing economic, political and cultural importance; and Portuguese, the sixth most spoken language in the world with 204 million speakers.

The main outcomes of the project and the longer-term benefits are:
• (IO02) seven tangible and measurable products carried out by the seven partner universities that can help to meet the challenges mentioned before:
o MOOC “Talk properly, write better. Keys for a proper use of Spanish”
o Creation of a multi-tool resource for monitored communicative interaction
o Applied research on motivation in e-learning and gamification
o Assessment and improvement of a German grammar learning programme: ProGram
o Development of two subtitling methods (L2 subtitling and bilingual subtitling)
o Production of a monitored online Portuguese course for teachers and learners
o Development of a system to measure English speaking and writing skills for academic purposes
• (IO05) an open-access repository of best practices in language teaching innovation,
• 13 mobility grants for technical and academic training in the use of new technologies applied to language teaching,
• publications in specialised journals of material with high scientific impact
• knowledge transfer.

These results have had an unquestionable impact at different levels:
o Internal level:
• On participating institutions: incorporation of the products in the teaching activity, improvement of the professional career of teachers and other staff, multiplier effect on the rest of the institutions involved.
• On the relationships among consortium partners: consolidation of relationships, sharing of ideas, joint organization of multiplier events, joint publications.
• On future actions or on development: undertaking of new projects (currently, Erasmus+ Xceling), academic exchanges, internationalization of teaching.
o External level:
• Production of materials available to the scientific community, teachers and learners.
• Repository of best practices, unique in its field and at world scale.
• Outstanding level of dissemination of the project’s achievements in global media.
• Involvement in the project’s development of other official and semiprivate bodies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 151370 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITE DE POITIERS
• UNIVERSIDADE DE COIMBRA
• ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
• RUPRECHT-KARLS-UNIVERSITAET HEIDELBERG
• THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
• CAIRO UNIVERSITY