EU Erasmus + KA 2 Projects
ETI is currently a partner on the CLIL-related project – CLIKC
This is the fourth Key Action 2 Erasmus + project in which ETI has participated as an active partner.
CLIKC stands for Content and Language Integrated learning for Key Competences.
The main idea behind CLIKC is to upskill people in Personal & Social Competences, thus enabling them to develop their competences and be in a better position to gain employment and/or move up the career ladder.
The Personal and Social Competences tackled were subdivided into these areas:
Skill 1: Dealing with complexity, coping with stress and uncertainty, effective time management
Skill 2: Critical thinking and making decisions, problem-solving
Skill 3: Communicating constructively, tolerance, creating confidence, emotional intelligence and feeling empathy
Skill 4: Working both collaboratively and autonomously, leadership, teamwork
Three of the partners on the project, BIT Schulungscenter, Accion Laboral and TECUM wrote around 330 short 15-minute micro-learning units, which also come with an interactive task. ETI Malta proofread all the units and provided a short language focus for each unit.
Two other partners on the project, Quantitas and Nexa, constructed a learning platform which involves an algorithm which will provide the next suggested unit to users based on their performance. Other partners involved in the project are Veneto Lavoro (leading the project), EVTA in Brussels (European Vocational Training Association) and the Politecnico di Torino.
In a wonderful example of exploitation of another EU Project (COOL), ETI suggested also uploading the units into Clilstore. This would enable users of the CLIKC platform whose English was weaker than B1 (Intermediate) level to be able to access and read the language in the micro-learning units. In this way, users in the countries where CLIKC will be trialled (Spain, Italy, Austria) could benefit from reading units and looking up new words in their own language. Once again, the multi-dictionary facilities of Clilstore were demonstrated.
And at the end of the EU project, the opensource coding for the learning platform could be made available to anyone from other countries wishing to upskill their personal and social competences.
EVTA was in charge of uploading the prepared units into Clilstore, so all the units are available to read under the Usernames of afrassetto and clara.agostini, who uploaded the prepared units.
Unfortunately, the tasks that come with each unit on the CLIKC learning platform do not accompany the Clilstore version, as creating interactive exercises in Clilstore would have slowed the project down tremendously, and the project was dealing with a very large volume of units.
The CLIKC project has now reached the point where we are trialling the platform and testing the algorithm with target groups in the employment market.
Meantime, anyone with an interest in developing any of the personal and social skills listed above can read all about them in Clilstore and make use of the multi-dictionary facility which facilitates reading.
And don’t forget … if registered as a Clilstore user, there is also the facility to record new vocabulary, write down your definition or translation of words, and then use the new interactive features of Clilstore, which will automatically create matching exercises and flashcards.
Completed Projects
COOL CLIL Open Online Learning project:
COOL has developed a web3 service where teachers can paste in text, select the language of the text, add graphics and video, create or attach language exercises/assignments and then automatically create an online webpage with all words linked to free dictionaries in +100 languages. The proposed web3 resource has improved on the previous Clilstore tool/service https://clilstore.eu/ developed in the previous TOOLS project (2012-2014). This has been selected as “one of the European Commission’s success stories” More info
The projects ETI is or was involved in are led by the POOLS partnership. Since 2002, POOLS has led EU-funded projects, which have developed resources in Language Teaching and Technology Enhanced Teaching.
CLIL4U Project
The CLIL4 U was an EU KA2 (Key Activity) Multilateral Projects which addressed the need for tools, teaching resources and materials for the application of CLIL in the Primary Education and the Vocational sectors.
We worked on this project for 2 years, together with partners from Denmark, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. The partners came from both Primary & Vocational backgrounds (schools), with ETI as the Quality Assurance/Teacher Training partner of the Project.
The project aimed to develop:
- a framework for the implementation of CLIL
- initial and in-service teacher courses on how to implement CLIL
- CLIL and language courses for content teachers
- certification of content teachers’ language skills (matching CEFR)
- a collection of free, ready to use CLIL resources including ICT based materials
- promotional materials that show the advantages of CLIL
ETI’s role was to identify ways to apply communicative language teaching methods to CLIL as well as to develop improved in-service training courses on CLIL. These training courses aim to overcome some of the known barriers to successful implementation of CLIL in the Primary and Secondary sector.
METHODS
ETI was a partner on the Methods for teaching foreign languages – METHODS Project.
The other teams besides ETI were:
- Mairie de Morne-à-l’Eau –Guadeloupe (France)
- SDE College (Syddansk Erhvervsskole Odense-Vejle) –Denmark
- Lycée Régional Gerty ARCHIMEDE – Guadeloupe (France)
- Malta College of Arts Science and Technology(MCAST) – Malta
- Srednja šola za gostinstvo in turizem Celje -Slovenia
- European Forum of Vocational Education and Training (EfVET)
METHODS was a two year project which took off in October 2013 and was completed in September 2015. METHODS is a Leonardo Da Vinci funded TOI (transfer of innovation) project, which is based on and follows up on the original BP-BLTM (Best Practice-Best Language Teaching Methods) project and the more recent Pools-M project.
This project aimed to continue the development of the 5 communicative language-teaching methods, These communicative methods deal with the application of the language taught in the classroom.
- Task-Based Learning
- PhyEmoC
- Simulations
- CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) and
- e-Tandem.
For each method the project developed a set of teaching resources and courses which support teachers. To facilitate the training of less experienced teachers, the use of the methods and all resources are demonstrated using instructional video recording of exemplary lessons.
The main outputs translated, adapted and transferred during the METHODS project period were:
- A video library with subtitled recordings of the five methods used in real classes.
- Five manuals with all five method descriptions, instructions and ready to copy and use resources.
- An International Work Placement Guide
- An online portal / website featuring all materials and resources.
This project transfered the BP-BLTM and POOL-M results to France (Guadeloupe), Malta, and Slovenia by adapting and translating the guide, the methods manuals, teaching materials, and the subtitles for the project videos.
This project will transfer the BP-BLTM and POOL-M results to France (Guadeloupe), Malta, and Slovenia by adapting and translating the guide, the methods manuals, teaching materials, and the subtitles for the project videos.
METHODS also continued to develop and promote the application of ICT methodologies in language teaching.
We run a number of in-service teacher training courses in Malta. These courses disseminate and exploit the results of the POOLS Projects.