The consortium brings together language training departments of higher education centres dedicated to the training of medical and care staff. As common challenge the partners have identified the lack of a modular, adequate, homogeneous, media supported training programme, based on CEFR standards to satisfy demands of learner-centred formal and informal learning approaches for the English levels B1/B2 and development of intercultural competences for training centres and learning at the workplace. These competences are required for students and staff in health and care for research, learning exchange and mobility in Europe.. New requirements for quality (medical) tourism and services require adequate language and intercultural skills Target group is also the pedagogical staff itself. Analyses of partners when preparing this project have shown that no one could identify adequate material on the market that meets the requirements for the specific needs to develop professional foreign language and intercultural skills at the level B1/B2 of CEFR. The practitioners have also analysed results of EU-projects (most are not accessible any more) and have come to the unanimous statement that those neither meet current needs. The partners have chosen English as target language because it is lingua franca and training is common with all European healthcare training centres . The IR partner assures linguistic correctness, as well as provides the consortium with specific information from hospitals and care centres. All partners bring in relevant intercultural aspects. The inspirations for audio-visual teaching materials will be mainly gathered in professional real-life situations and from feedback of practitioners, composed for scripts, cases and scenarios and professionally recorded in ES. To overcome the inadequate situation to use self-made materials composed of different sources, partners apply for this project in order to produce a free and high quality reference material for the English education for healthcare students and professionals in European countries, based on the experience and needs from institutions that really work on the subject and know the gaps. Secondly, it is commonly recognized that foreign languages contribute to better recognition on the European labour market, especially among healthcare professionals. The project’s aim is to overcome linguistic barriers and improve chances for students, medical and care professionals for active efficient use of the potentials that the European community offers for learning and working. We will offer innovative linguistic support in the area of English for Medical Purposes by providing an easily accessible, flexible and media assisted learning programme to those who wish to volunteer, carry out specialist trainings, study or work professionally in English speaking healthcare environment. The consortium brings together the necessary expertise to meet the challenge:pedagogical staff directly and daily(PL, CZ, LT, SK) working in healthcare education, professional enterprise experienced in media supported learning (ES), an institute of applied research for innovative learning approaches with expertise in foreign language and intercultural training (DE) and a provider of a wide range of specialist English trainings (IE)will cooperate. Key actors and stakeholders from education will be involved to assure practical focus, reach wide dissemination, sustainable use and acceptance within English training in healthcare in Europe. The project will make its contribution to innovativeness in vocational training with respect to development of foreign language and intercultural competences for the work place. In order to meet the needs, it will offer computer assisted pedagogical material available for learners and trainers and a learning platform for media based cooperative learning in formal learning settings based on CEFR.The free platform will also link to social networks of professionals and contain learning support for informal learning. The consortium wishes to preserve national qualities and at the same time create a unified value and generally recognized course on English for Medical Purposes, thus the challenge to create a completely new learning approach for the English training of healthcare professionals in five East European countries will be met within this European perspective. The project’s long-term aim is to improve employability, competitiveness and entrepreneurship in the view of new European employment possibilities for healthcare professionals by giving them a tool to more successful integration into foreign and national labour markets. Other envisaged short and long-term benefits are connected with development of intercultural competence, professional and long-lasting synergy of organizations active in the field of education, training and work and cross-sectorial cooperation to attract non-traditional learners, mostly adult healthcare workers.
Context: English has become lingua franca in medical sciences. Students and medical staff are encouraged to read medical journals, participate in conferences, take an internship or work in other European countries to develop professionally and share experience. All above situations will not happen if it had not been for the knowledge of the English language. Access to the EU has opened the job market for new countries from Eastern Europe. There is a growing number of healthcare professionals who undertake work abroad. The project idea was to contribute to objectives of Europe 2020 strategies by enhancing competitiveness of Eastern European healthcare workers, strengthening their career chances and promoting labour market integration. Starting work in a foreign country is a very demanding process. It not only requires good professional preparation, but primarily language and intercultural skills. Communication skills often are not sufficiently developed among healthcare workers. Different from other fields of professional occupation, this gap bears a high risk. Partners that all are experts in this training field unanimously agreed that learning material and approaches that satisfy those demands in a holistic approach was not available on the market.Media development and cheaper mobile devices offer new perspectives for flexible and informal learning approaches that have not found correspondence in the available learning materials and approaches. Partners were aware of the gaps that hinder to provide adequate high standard foreign language and intercultural training to prepare students for the requirements of professional life that more and more takes place at a European workplace. Objectives: The main aim of HELP was to create an innovative standard learning setting for healthcare English learners and professionals at the levels B1 and B2 of the CEFR. HELP has been funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme and addresses two political priorities of the EU: ICT and Open Source usage and Multilingualism by using ICT to modernise European Union Higher Education and strengthen quality mobility and cross-border cooperation. The key aspects are internationalisation, promotion of labour market integration and enhancing competitiveness in the healthcare industry. Organisations: international interdisciplinary staff composed of language teachers, linguists, pedagogues, medical doctors and software engineers from seven countries. Main activities; An extensive research in O1 was the basis for our further planning in O3 and the design phase. Research e.g. revealed that we should give more space than initially planned to intercultural topics. We used transnational meetings, monthly progress reports and monthly Skype meetings for discussion and agreement on further progress. During the design phase partners brought in didactical input from their national experiences. For material development we agreed on which partner would have the best professional background for specific module topics. Authors, linguists, medical doctors, language teachers, pedagogues worked together in a multistep development process. Each semi-finished module went for cross-check to authors from another country to gather feedback, based on a detailed check-list. When having a final draft version, the module went to the quality manager (experienced language teacher and pedagogue) for another feedback loop, final check and approval. For the development of online-resources the platform developed was based on Moodle. Cartoon videos with subtitles were developed, key words, language corners and dialogues recorded. Testing took place with 510 participants from 17 countries. Adaptations were carried out. Fine tuning and printing prepared a hard copy for partners and stakeholders. Results and impact: The programme benefits everyone who wants or needs to improve their English language skills working in the healthcare industry. HELP is a modular, adequate, homogeneous, media supported training programme, based on CEFR standards to satisfy demands of learner-centred formal and informal learning approaches for the English levels B1/B2 and development of intercultural competences for training centres and learning at the workplace. Our innovative approach to combine the development of professional and personal knowledge, skills and competences (working on medical, linguistic, intercultural, ethical and social content, using motivating methodical approach) guarantees the intended impact on progress in Higher and Further Education. The learning material is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licenses, Apps included, to make HELP results a free, flexible, modular and high quality learning tool to support further development of HE and VET We see potentials to transfer our results not only for foreign language learning at HE level but for other HE studies as well, especially with regard to media use, flexible and motivating learning approaches