Development of a job orientation program (JOP)In 2016, living in a globalised world is a fact. Preparing students for a successful professional life in the 2020s and later on means automatically preparing them to live in and therefore to understand the different aspects of our globalised world. Mobility – on an European or an international level – will have impacts on these young people’s future. Our project aims to help them to understand the possibilities globalisation holds for them and to reflect the advantages and disadvantages of being mobile citizens and employees who are open for new experiences, critical spirits and citizens in the search of a better world.As our project aims to let our students not only learn about work possibilities, but to feel and experience them themselves, we will cooperate with our partners in Turkey and Lithuania - an interesting combination of countries of which one once was one of the motors of the European idea (Germany) and a country that aspires membership of the EU (Turkey), along with a recent member of the EU (Lithuania) - the perfect combination to work together about the past, the present and the future of globalisation. Students and teachers from each partner school will work together on a regular basis by modern communication devices as well as during the transnational meetings in Germany, Turkey and Lithuania. The cooperation in the strategic school-partnership will develop a job orientation program that will become part of the schools´ curriculum. Our project wants to make young people reflect about their working possibilities after graduation but we also want to encourage this reflexion in students who have trouble graduating and who are in need of additional motivation. A high percentage of German students have a Turkish background. Working with our partners will reveal that these students have many competences that are helpful for the success of the project: For most of them it will be the first time that the fact that they understand and very often also speak Turkish will be recognized in their school. They will also have the opportunity to show their intercultural competences by serving as mediators between our Turkish and Lithuanian partners and become more self-confident.While learning languages is regarded as being of great importance, our students still don’t have enough opportunities to practice foreign languages under circumstances where the foreign language really is needed for a successful communication. Working on the project will show them the practical significance of English as the lingua franca. At the same time we want to make sure that all participants learn some basic phrases in all partner languages. They will therefore not only increase their competence in foreign languages but understand the importance of life-long-language-learning. We learn very often that our students start thinking about job orientation very late. To motivate them to beginn this process earlier, we would like to work with students age 14-16. They will not only get information about their career chances by speaking to local experts and by visiting enterprises in every partner country, but they will discuss their hopes, dreams and chances with students who have a different background. By working together in intercultural roleplays (e.g. job-interviews) they will become aware of what working on an international level means. We will film these roleplays so we can analyse them in the intercultural project groups as well as in the three partner schools. The participating students will use their experiences to develop interactive units of the new job orientation program that the coordinating teachers will include in the curriculum developed during this project. We would like to encourage our students to deepen their experiences by making internships in enterprises in the partner countries as well as in other countries they might find interesting. Thus our project will not only motivate our students to start thinking about job oriention from a younger age, but encourage and enable them to make real work-experiences while they are still in school - we consider that an added value to their CV.The students participating in this project will hopefully be the pioneers of what will be part of our student's regular way in the process of job orientation in the coming years - they will be the first to make international work experiences, they will share these experiences with the younger students and help them to undergo similar processes even after the end of this project.We especially regard the contacts to the work market as potential long term benefits. We will maintain the contact with our partners after the official end of the project because we have to keep our newly developed program up-to-date and add new ideas. We would especially like to organise an annual video conference (A3) where students can share their attitudes toward mobility and career.
Context of the project: Due to globalisation and European unity in our world, particularly in today's upcoming criticism of it, our project wants to motivate and enable students from age 15 to 18 to deal with the process of job orientation right from the beginning by taking into account a European and international perspective. This will greatly enhance their abilty to seize the enormous European and global opportunities. Goals: The students were asked to reflect about the most essential aspects of job orientation with their Turkish and Lithuanian partners in order to automatically gain an international perspective. They were training together by researching job fields, by visiting international companies, by writing their CVs and applications together and by training job interviews in English in role plays in order to become more self-confident when it comes to choosing a job or finding the right career field. Number and profile of participating schools: The coordinating school in Germany is providing general education on a secondary level. It provides two educational concepts: one focusses mainly on maths and natural sciences and the other on languages (English, French, Latin, Spanish, Italian). The students have multiethnical backgrounds. The Lithuanian partner school is partly a private school with a focus on arts, music and drama. The Turkish partner school provides general education that prepares its students for going to university. In contrast to the German school, the Lithuanian and Turkish school have less students with multiethnical or migration backgrounds. Description of the main activities: The students visited international enterprises in all partner countries (Audi, Uni, Smelte...) and were able to attend a workshop and talk to people from their human resources departments and to people who are responsible for the training of new employees. Furthermore, they worked on their CVs and applications and trained for job interviews. The students also worked on the aspired products of the project which are several booklets and the mini-phrasebook. Reached results and effect: The students finalized a booklet for students and one for teachers dealing with job orientation, a teacher´s guide and a mini-phrasebook with the most essential phrases that you need when you are looking for a job. Every participant worked with Europass in order to write their own CV and an application in English. Furthermore, the students took notes while visiting international enterprises and talking to the HR people. These notes are part of their personal job orientation portfolios. When visiting the countries of their partners, the students of each partner school have learned how young people all over Europe deal with the topic of job orientation and how to successfully work in international teams. Longterm benefit: All three partner schools have revised their perception of European projects and international cooperations and gained a much more positive attitude.