The European Commission considers workers and citizens’ free mobility one of the most important right to be encouraged, because it represents an essential component of common labor market, in order to stimulate the economic growth and to fight against unemployment. Given the context of severe economic crisis that characterized Europe at this historical juncture, and the consequent difficulty of interpreting the needs of a labor market in a strong contraction, the free mobility of European workers might give a major contribution to help tackle the socio-economic changes and thus to realize the main targets of Europe 2020 Strategy for growth, jobs, social equity and inclusion. However in order to achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth European Union needs a skilled workforce. The project’s objective is to promote free and successful movement of workers in Europe through the use of Content and Language Integrated Learning methodology. The partnership will develop an Open Educational Resources in order to support all those people who want to have a job experience in another European Country both in terms of vocational guidance and language training. The Educational resources will be therefore created in partners’ national languages and structured as a CLIL course with gradual difficulties in order to constitute also a useful language tool, that will strengthen the communicative competence of the trainees. The contents will address vocational guidance topics such as: how to write an effective curriculum vitae, how to write an effective cover letter, how to behave during an interview, what are the most common employment contracts, what are the best job searching channels, how to deal with money/salary issues. Each partner will produce the material in its own language, and the material produced will train participants from the other partnership’s countries who are planning to look for a job in one of the other countries. The target users of the project outputs and products will be those adults both employed and unemployed who completed their education and are planning to look for a job abroad to start their professional life, to make an experience that will enrich their competences or to find a better position. 100 members of the target groups with different background in terms of age, education, job experience and social status will participate to the piloting phase and will be addressed by dissemination and exploitation activities. Project implementation: Firstly the partners will produce a set of guidelines for the production of the materials following the CLIL methodology. Secondly they will create a set of guidelines regarding the content learning. They will agree on the topics to be treated and on the form they will have (i.e. text, dialogs, videos, audio files, etc..) in order to have homogeneous materials. Following the deadlines, each partner will produce didactic materials in its own language using the CLIL methodology and addressing all those topics that are useful to train people for working in their country. A set of short videos will be produced to be included among the CLIL materials but also to represent a useful tool for dissemination. The partners will select among the topics that will be addressed those that are more suitable to be visualized and will agree on their style. All the material will be structured as an Open Educational Resource, and be available on a platform accessible by the project’s website. The learning materials will be piloted in each country. Every partner will recruit 5 learners for each of the other 4 languages. The learners feedback will be collected and analyzed by administrating questionnaires. Based on the results of the piloting phase the partners will produce the final version of the OER, putting into practice the results of the feedback for each language, in order to produce effective and easily usable materials. The project will contribute to change European workers mindset, and make them plan their professional life not only in national but also in European terms. The project is also going to sensitize trainers and guidance operators to include CLIL methodology-based tools into their activities, and thus will contribute to the exploitation of this effective methodology also outside of the usual path of the formal education, and affirm the idea that it could be particularly useful in the field of adult education. Ultimately the greatest impact will be to contribute in Europe to the fostering of a well-performing training system, that provides European workers with the skills required by the labor market and the economy. The partners and the organization involved in the project’s implementation will embed the OER into their usual training and guidance activities, ensuring the sustainability of the results. The structure of the OER will give the opportunity to add further languages, and in theory to collect all the languages spoken in Europe.
To stimulate the economic growth and fight unemployment, the European Commission considers workers’ and citizens’ free mobility as one of the most important rights to encourage, because it is an essential component of the common labour market. Given the context of severe economic crisis that characterises Europe at this historical juncture, and the consequent difficulty of interpreting the needs of a labour market in strong contraction, European workers’ free mobility may contribute greatly to tackle socio-economic changes and thus to achieve the main targets of Europe 2020 Strategy for growth, jobs, social equity and inclusion. However, in order to achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth, European Union needs a skilled workforce. The project’s objective is to promote the free and successful movement of workers in Europe through the use of a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) methodology. For this purpose, the partnership has developed an Open Educational Resource, the VGCLIL training platform, whose target users are adults, employed and unemployed, who completed/are completing their education and plan to look for a job abroad to start their professional life or to make an experience that will enrich their competences. Partners: INFOREF (BE): non-profit with a long experience in European project management, e-learning, and website development. BEST (AT): provides continuous training, vocational qualification and career services to young (+16) individuals and adults. Universidad de Murcia (ES): university covering 8 scientific areas, including humanities. The involved staff is expert in language learning and linguistics. Apricot (UK): non-profit that contributes to a strong, sustainable and socially inclusive economy by promoting and facilitating learning, training and development in and for the workplace. ASTERES (IT): organises and promotes initiatives to foster workers and citizens’ free mobility and positive inclusion in the job market. They are involved in vocational guidance, language learning and ICT. The training platform was created in partners’ national languages (French, English, Italian, Spanish, German) and structured as a CLIL course with gradual difficulty, to constitute a useful language tool that aims to strengthen the communicative competence of the trainees. It is available for B2 and C1 levels and is divided in 4 modules (job search skills, job applications, interview skills and intercultural skills). Using various supports (texts, videos, audio files…), the platform enhances learners’ communication in a foreign language while providing them with vocational guidance on such topics as: how to write an effective CV and cover letter, how to behave during a job interview, etc. The training platform is freely accessible at http://vgclil.eu/training-platform. Firstly the partners produced two sets of guidelines to produce the materials following the CLIL methodology and regarding content learning. They agreed on the topics to be treated and the form they would have (text, dialogs, videos, audio files, etc.) in order to have homogeneous materials. Each partner produced didactic materials in its own language using the CLIL methodology. A sample of the target groups with different background in terms of age, education, job experience and social status participated in the piloting phase. This phase helped the partners produce the final version of the platform. The project gave the partners a new tool they can use in their training programme and everyday practice, and gave them the opportunity to acquire knowledge about employability in their country and in Europe, to acquaint themselves with the CLIL methodology and to create materials specifically designed for e-learning. The pilot users acquired important knowledge and skills related to job search abroad and to the command of a foreign language. Based on their feedback, users of all countries usually feel better prepared and more confident for their job search. These first results indicate that VGCLIL is relevant and appropriate for its objectives. As long term benefit, VGCLIL will contribute to change European workers’ mindset, and make them plan their professional life not only in national but also in European terms. The project is also going to encourage trainers and guidance operators to include CLIL methodology-based tools into their activities, and will contribute to exploit this effective methodology outside the usual path of formal education demonstrating; it could be particularly useful in the field of adult education. Ultimately the greatest impact will be to contribute in Europe to the fostering of a well-performing training system, which provides European workers with the skills required by the labour market and the economy. The partners and the organisations involved in the project implementation will embed the platform into their usual guidance activities, ensuring the sustainability of the results.