Interactive and Mobile-Adapted Learning Tool to Improve the Level of Technical English for Employees in Tourism Erasmus Project

Project Title

Interactive and Mobile-Adapted Learning Tool to Improve the Level of Technical English for Employees in Tourism

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 2017

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

Context: Tourism is a key sector in the European Economy. It provides economic opportunities particularly for lower qualified citizens as well as persons with education in other sectors for which Tourism is a second chance for employment. Due to the globalisation of tourism good commandment of at least one key foreign language is a key competence for all employees in order to be able to communicate with guests as well as colleagues in international teams. In many countries the level of English is not sufficient for such communication. Even if there is some knowledge from prior learning in schools, this knowledge is not Tourism specific and not practiced enough.

Objective: The objective of the project is to enable low qualified employees in tourism to communicate in English on a basic, but sufficient level. To this end, the project transfered a proven Video based system (from project TENGSports) of learning English for basic job related communication from the field of sports to the field of tourism. The system captured typical situations faced by entry level tourism employees and enable employees to understand English communication in these situations and respond adequately. The project used insights and methodologies from the project TouriSMEComp to empower hotels and restaurants to produce and use video based self-learning media to learn English.

Specific target groups benefited from the project outputs (Interactive learning platform including online videos and exercises, a training handbook for multipliers of facilitating self learning of language competencies in Tourism, Tutorial on Creating video based self learning material, mobile adaptation of the learning platforn, newsletters, flyers, website, multplier events and stakeholder meetings, etc.):

(i) employees in tourism; employees with a low level of prior formal learning, etc.
(ii) tourism organisations like hotels and restaurants, agencies and guidance companies;
(iii) professionals that intends to train or re-train in order to acquire specific skills
(iv) other stakeholders whose interaction is fundamental to strength competences and abilities, namely local and national governments, policy-makers, standardization authorities.

In particular during the project phase the following numbers among target groups benefited directly or indirectly from the project:
– 514 participants to the interactive training materials
– 114 stakeholders took part to the multiplier events
– Around 17.000 people visited the project website and outputs

4 Intellectual Outputs were produced: Interactive learning platform including online videos and exercises, a training handbook for multipliers of facilitating self learning of language competencies in Tourism, Tutorial on Creating video based self learning material and mobile adaptation of the learning platforn to run the learning content on mobile devices in an easier way. These were supported by multipliers which are trained to help to design and produce such learning videos. The proven results from the prior projects were used to generate substantial further innovation through synergy and transfer. The quality of all activities was assured by methodologies approved by the German Society for Evaluation (DGEVAL).

As the main impact of the project, key competences of English for Life Long Learning of employees in the Tourism industry was increased. Continuing vocational training and life long leraning in some hotels and restaurants became common in general as a consequence of the learning of English through modern video based learning methods.There is a possibility to increase the learning videos by the multipliers and other stakeholders through the learning platform and the youtube channel opened specific for the project. It is observed that the elements of gamification of the learning motivated learners to achieve good results. A part from that, some tourism organisations worked with their employees to produce additional learning videos and they are supported by the multipliers. This active learning aims at developing the competence to use the production of video based learning material as a learning methodology on a sustainable basis.

All of the learners (as well as additional external users) were able to use the learning material. As well as that. the additional material will be also produced at least three years after the project. It is expected that the platform and content will grow and be used also after that. As the main product of the project will be open educational resources (interactive learning videos for English in tourism including quizes, role play, dictation and vocabulary exercises) the audience for using these learning platforms will be potentially unlimited. New Users can reach to the learning platform easily through the project website (https://toureng.impark.com.tr/Account/LmsNewUser).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 203597,91 Eur

Project Coordinator

GAZI UNIVERSITESI & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Fundação de Ensino Profissional da Praia da Vitória
• Fundatia pentru Promovarea Intreprinderilor Mici si Mijlocii Brasov
• ISOB INSTITUT FUR SOZIALWISSENSCHAFTLICHE BERATUNG GMBH
• SVET JE LEP, BREDA DULAR s.p.
• STORYTELLME, UNIPESSOAL LDA