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Into a world without language boundaries - increasing lifelong learning opportunities
Start date: Jun 1, 2015, End date: May 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

As a foreign language school with a clear vision of a “world without language boundaries” and the goal of providing exceptional education experience, it is of utter importance to us to constantly and continuously work on increasing and strengthening our staff competencies. The objectives of our project are to strengthen our institution’s competencies through the implementation of newly gained knowledge and skills into our existing educational programmes, as well as using these skills to create brand new educational programmes and education delivery methods. Through innovative programmes and the expansion of our services, our institution will gain a competitive edge and strengthen its position on the local and regional markets. Our main target group, which includes a continuously increasing number of adult learners seeking to acquire language competencies, will benefit from the implementation of quality standards and innovative teaching methods, as well as improved accessibility of educational materials by receiving an enhanced experience in the classroom throughout all of our educational programmes. Our participating staff includes eight of our language teachers and four of our management staff. All participants were selected on the basis of their motivation, the ability to define their goals within the objectives of our institution’s development, and their willingness to share and disseminate the acquired competencies. Over the course of two years, our participants will attend structured courses in the areas defined by our needs analysis. Language teachers will participate in training programmes in language teaching methodology, ICT use in the classroom and integration of cultural aspects into teaching, all of which will take place in countries where the languages they teach is spoken. Management staff will take part in courses on quality assurance, European project management and stress prevention, as well as job shadowing in a large public language school in Spain. All programmes were carefully selected to match our outlined objectives, and partner institutions were chosen based on their experience and expertise in specific areas. In addition, job shadowing was chosen as a method of gaining insight into business practices of a large European institution. The project is expected to have an immediate and long-term impact on our organisation, staff, students and other language teachers, locally and regionally. Our teachers will have updated knowledge and skills in the areas key to their work, and their intercultural awareness will be increased. They will be able to create new teaching materials and resources (electronic and other), which will contribute to the creation of new and updated programmes in our schools. Their motivation will increase as a result of this positive learning experience, and all of this will contribute to their teaching practices in general. The skills acquired by our staff will directly contribute to the competitiveness of our institution on the regional market, enabling us to implement the best quality assurance and management policies, at the same time providing expanded and innovative educational programmes for a wider range of students. Finally, our students will benefit from the enhanced learning experience offered to them in our institution. New resources and approaches will help them learn more efficiently. Fresh cultural and methodological insights of their teachers will allow them to gain a better insight into the language and culture they are learning. Increased and enhanced use of ICT will allow them to keep up with their courses more easily, and have access to authentic cultural and linguistic materials. With the integration of intercultural skills into our courses, the students will have a greater opportunity to successfully participate in European mobility and the international job market, and communicate more effectively with people from different European cultures. We will share the results of our project within our organisation, with our partners, but also with the members of different regional and national language teaching associations, making sure it is disseminated to the largest audience possible. The project will enable us to develop our school’s European Dimension by integrating European quality standards into our management practices and a stronger intercultural aspect into our language courses, but also by establishing contacts with other European teachers, managers and institutions. This will allow us to exchange examples of good practice, gain insight into different operations, exchange practical advice and resources and organise and collaborate on future Erasmus + KA2 projects and other European activities. All of this will help us to contribute to “a world without language boundaries”.
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