EasySpeak Erasmus Project

Project Title

EasySpeak

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 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; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Functional not fluent. The ability to communicate with prospective new business partners is a fundamental language skill that is frequently lacking within EU countries where companies, particularly SMEs, are seeking global business opportunities. The life sciences sector being a global industry this is a known barrier to business growth.
EasySpeak was a 2-year activity that developed a core vocabulary of over 500 words and phrases in those languages known from previously funded Leonardo project work to be critical for global business development. This learning was developed via an online learning platform using an open educational resources approach. The selected languages include European languages (English, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish) and some perceived “hard to learn” languages (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean).
EasySpeak then developed a further 500 words vocabulary that is specific to business conversation and the life sciences industry to facilitate further business engagement and then tested the transferability of this core vocabulary into four other sectors: advanced manufacturing, ICT, tourism and public services.
Five partners, from four EU countries worked on the development of the language materials and platform as well as on the dissemination strategy and sustainability plan. Two of the partners are specialist life sciences cluster groups (Bioindustry Park and One Nucleus) that bring sector knowledge of need and routes to market for the materials. The other three partners (ALOS, EDCCC and RLN) are vocational education training specialists that provide the key understanding of the development of educational online learning resources and the specific skills in the selected languages.
The result of the project is an online platform available here: http://easy-speak.today and accessible at no charge by any computer or mobile device users. The adoption of a simple to use host platform that does not require a large amount of online storage capacity offers partners and other agencies the facility to incorporate EasySpeak into their normal business offer.
The platform contains over 1000 words and phrases of general conversation, business and life sciences vocabulary translated in 10 different languages available in writing and audio files.
The platform has been disseminated by partners to local companies and agencies and has had a positive impact on those willing to expand abroad that is related in the case studies. It has also been tested on other sector specialists in advanced manufacturing, ICT, tourism and public services and was adopted – likely highlighting a longer term need for sector specific vocabularies to be developed for other sectors that are critical to business growth for EU based businesses in the global economic marketplace.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 242000,88 Eur

Project Coordinator

ONE NUCLEUS LIMITED & Country: UK

Project Partners

• RLN (UK) Ltd
• BIOINDUSTRY PARK SILVANO FUMERO SPA
• Europe for diversity culture coexistence and citizenship
• Alos Centro Europeo de Idiomas, S.L