Project is addressing concrete need specified as lack of vocationally-orientated modern teaching and learning materials in the vocational electrician schools in Slovakia (and also in the Czech Republic). Therefore, we expect project results to directly contribute to fulfilling this gap at VET Slovak and Czech schools, in the specific field of electrician and other related professions. In the project we have 8 partners (5 VET electrician schools, CfME CZ, ATT UK and Kouvola College in Finland). ATT Training from UK will bring their expertise on blended learning and provide the consortium with 1000 learning object (pictures, animations, videos etc.). Vocational school from Finland will bring the knowledge about the state-of-the-art vocational language education in Scandinavia. CfME SK as well as CfME CZ has great experience in eLearning development as well as vocational language content development (projects Volant, ALT, InterCar, Enter SK, HAIR etc.) in both – paper and electronic versions. CfME has long term experience with teacher training (more then 20 courses accredited by Ministry of Education). CfME SK as a consortium leader has great experience in project management including Leonardo Transfer of Innovation project management. Slovak and Czech schools will focus mostly on testing and a real usage of the developed materials. They will also have important role in methodology and dissemination. The interest of schools in the project (5 partner + 15 Letters of Support = 1/3 of all electrician schools in SK + we expect additional schools from CR) shows a real and urgent need. Currently, the electrician content oriented language teaching materials are very limited in Slovakia. Most of the schools use only “home-made” materials. Because of this teachers tend to practice only general English not related to the future student profession. As far as we know there are no online interactive language learning materials online which would be used by electrician schools in Slovakia (and the Czech Republic). During the project following education materials will be developed: 1. 600 e-Learning interactive screens of electrician vocational English and German (grades 1-3) 2. Teachers´ instruction manual for LMS and e-learning modules usage 3. Vocational electrician language teachers´ textbook in English and German, grades 1, 2, and 3 4. Vocational electrician language students´ textbook / exercise book in English and German, grades 1, 2, and 3 5. Vocational multilanguage picture and sound-based online dictionary for electricians 6. 1000 electrician learning screens – pictures, 2D, 3D animations and videos as a base for other project outputs We will integrate following language teaching / learning principals: - CLIL - Content Language Integrated Learning - full interactivity (both – in online as well as paper based versions) - individual work as well as group activities like role playing, interviews etc. - usage and combination of broad spectrum of different teaching tools and methods - differentiation, acceptance of difference student learning styles as well as levels, learning speed etc. - internet solutions (anywhere, anytime) - motivation for further learning and personal development - native speaker voice-over and videos in combination with further interactive methods - immediate feedback and individual monitoring of personal development Interactive learning screens will bring new level of quality into language vocational studies, which was unknown to students and teachers using only textbooks and exercise books. Teachers will have enough high quality materials to be able to differentiate their approach to students as well as to use different methods reflecting different learning styles of students. Combination of individual online home work with group work during the lessons with be adapted into the methodology and teaching materials. Immediate feedback is essential for language skills development. The next day feedback (for example for homework) is simply too late. Monitoring of personal development helps the student to concentrate on his/her real needs. It also helps teacher to monitor and evaluate student work. All materials will be systematically tested at all development stages by partner schools. By the project end, we expect the increase of vocational foreign language skills and ICT competencies of the minimum of 500 students participating in testing period by using the LMS and eLearning. In 3 year after the project end we expect at least 2500 students taking courses based on the developed materials.
The FLASH project was implemented under the programme Erasmus +. The aim of the FLASH project was to support teaching of foreign languages in a professional context. Its main tangible output are textbooks for professional English and German (grade 1-3), which are accompanied by e-learning activities. The lessons are focused on topics from the electro environment including the main grammar and lexical items. The project consortium consisted of partners from the United Kingdom, Finland and Slovakia. As the project was intended for VET schools in the electro field, there were five vocational schools from Slovakia and one vocational school from Czech Republic that tested and piloted the learning content. The project is addressing concrete needs based on the lack of vocationally-oriented modern teaching and learning materials in the VET schools in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic. Therefore, we expect project results to directly contribute to fulfilling this gap at VET Slovak and Czech schools in the electrical field and other related professions. Using the project outputs, teachers will have access to high quality teaching and learning materials and thus they will be able to use different methods reflecting different learning styles of the students. The FLASH textbooks for English and German languages are designed for the 1st to 3rd year of VET schools in the electrical field. The main aim was to prepare future professionals in the electrical field for real situations that may arise in their work. The language focus of the textbooks aims at extending the professional vocabulary range using the real-life situations in the context. A considerable emphasis is put on practice and real-life dialogue simulations. The authors of the textbooks were aware of the gap in a foreign language tuition during the week of practical training at schools and therefore also included suitable activities to help fill this gap. The textbooks and the e-learning materials are visually attractive for their users, they include a lot of colour photographs and visual symbols. Their attractiveness is enhanced by the fact that students can make notes directly in the text. During the testing and piloting of the learning materials, the students and teachers gave positive evaluation appreciating the interdependence of textbooks with interactive e-learning exercises, videos and interviews recorded by native speakers. Not only vocabulary based activities are included, but also grammar points and related exercises. As the textbooks and the e-learning activities connect the theoretical and practical part of the course, students will be well prepared in terms of their language competencies in the professional context. The student textbooks are accompanied by a detailed methodology for teachers with practical advice, tips, suggestions and the answer key. The need to develop and introduce specialized language learning materials was well verified when we introduced the project outputs to VET schools. The project FLASH was introduced to more than 50 secondary vocational schools with more than 150 teachers and 3000 students. The project team interviewed the teachers from these schools during the training sessions and dissemination events and collected their feedback. We are going to disseminate the project even after its project cycle, as we are currently working on a similar project called Green Wheels that is focused on VET technical schools as well. Through this new project we can address more technical schools as potential users of the FLASH project outputs.