Emotional competence is a basic competence that characterise emotionally intelligent individuals. It includes several skills and capacities, such as the emotional self-consciousness, emotional self-control, self-motivation, empathy and social skills. Those refer to the ability to influence, communicate, collaborate, resolve conflicts and work as a team. The organisations ecosystem is social and based on relationships. In this scenario the most important language is the one of the emotions and therefore, the management of these emotions is essential. Daniel Goleman was clear when affirmed that Emotional Capacities are one of the three success factors in professional and personal life. Nowadays, organisational environments need to consider a new player in the team, ICTs and social media, which offer new ways of expressing and communicating emotions, and have their own codes and languages. The use of visual elements (such as emoticons, gifs, video, pictures…) and new words (jargon from the gamer world, anglicisms, abbreviations, new meanings for words and idioms…). All these elements shape the communication. While emotions are universal the interpretation and understanding of these language elements is subjective and can lead to misunderstandings. League of emotions Learners project aims at empowering young people, so they are able to develop their emotional competences, to identify and express self-emotions, to establish successful communication with others both online and offline, to be aware of the limits and potential of ICT-based communication and to manage emotions in professional environments (including volunteering experiences, within a company or when being entrepreneurs). LoeL objectives are: - To develop empowering and training resources that allow young people to identify the origin and nature of the emotions. - To facilitate a diverse set of activities that combine real ICT-based communication methods and channels with working and personal environments scenarios. - To get to know linguistic expressions that in different cultural backgrounds express basic emotions. - To teach appropriate verbal and gestural indicators to send effective messages in dialogues, negotiation or conflict situations. - To provide enterprises and organizations that work with young people with a training material that allow to improve not only the business but also the personal and working atmosphere. Main target groups include: young people; and youth workers and educators. Over 650 and 42 representatives of these groups, respectively, will be involved in testing and validating activities. Main outputs are: League of emotions Learners APP – an interactive software designed to empower young people to be able to identify, manage, communicate and understand own and other people emotions. Starting from developing the young people emotional literacy (that is, increasing awareness & understanding of feelings, including the ability to accurately label emotions), the LoeL APP seeks to provide the young collective with the necessary competences and skills to be able to express and communicate emotions. The APP includes: 1 – The multilingual dictionary of emotions: including definitions of the 50 most easily identifiable emotions. 2 – Expressing emotions: a set of concrete activities will be designed to offer young people the opportunity to interact, create and learn. An important focus will be taken to link this sections activity with ICT-based communication tools and channels (videos, emojis, gifs, etc.) 3 – Emotionally Intelligent organisations: young people will put into practice, through gamified activities, how to manage emotions in professional backgrounds. The Emotions Learners League – A guide for youth workers - A guide for youth workers designed to serve as guideline for those professionals working with the young people, with the objective of providing them with game-based and non-formal learning methodologies focused on emotions identifications, management and communication skills and competences. The methods are not only transferrable from online to offline scopes, but from the informal and non-formal to formal education. In this sense, partners will made explicit also some tips and recommendations on how to use the APP and the proposed activities in school, VET, universities and adult education practices.
Emotional competence, which characterizes emotionally intelligent individuals, is a basic competence. It includes various skills and abilities, such as emotional self-awareness, emotional self-control, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills. These refer to the ability to influence, communicate, collaborate, resolve conflicts and work as a team, and are applicable to all human interactions. The researchers confirm that young people tend to use ICT and social networks to communicate and express themselves, and companies, for their part, highlight the lack of youth skills for communication and active listening as one of their main issues faced when integrating the new generations into their work teams Therefore, there is a gap that can generate problems, especially when we talk about new technologies. The communication of emotions based on ICT has its own codes and language. The use of visual elements (such as emoticons, gifs, video, images…) and new words (gamer slang, Anglicisms, abbreviations, new meanings of words and idioms…) shape communication. And while emotions are universal, the interpretation and understanding of these elements of language is subjective and can lead to misunderstandings. Within this context, the LoeL project aimed to empower young people so that they can develop their emotional competencies, identifying and expressing their own emotions; communicating successfully with other people, both online and offline; and being aware of the limits and potential of ICT-based communication, successfully managing their emotions in professional settings (including volunteer experiences, in the company field or being entrepreneurs). The specific objectives were to: - Develop empowerment and training resources that allow young people to identify the origin and nature of emotions. - Provide a varied set of activities that combine real communication methods and channels based on ICT with work and personal environment scenarios. - Know the linguistic expressions that in different cultural contexts express basic emotions. - Learn appropriate verbal and gestural indicators to send effective messages in dialogues, negotiations or conflict situations. - Provide companies and organizations that work with young people with training material that allows them to improve the personal and work environment. LOEL's target groups are two: - Young people. - Youth workers. The project produced 2 main results: 1. The LoeL APP is an interactive software designed to train young people in the identification, management, communication and understanding of their own and others' emotions. It is available for Android and iOS mobile devices and focuses on developing the emotional literacy of young people. It offers a series of games specially designed to raise awareness and develop specific skills that are highly useful in communicating emotions in personal and professional settings. From a gamified approach, the App displays a total of 10 different types of games, divided into 7 categories. A reward system is included as a motivator, which works by providing the player with experience points and tickets to customize their avatar and room. The level system includes 4 statuses: Beginner, Talented, Expert, and Master. 2. The training of youth workers took place in October 2019 in Bilbao, around a 25-hour program, carried out over 5 days, based on the thematic blocks: - Some theories and many practices on Emotional Intelligence. Emotions and their link with other basic skills, such as empathy, assertiveness, and communication. - Informal methods to facilitate learning processes. LoeL concept. Knowing the LoeL APP. - Let's talk emoji. Jargon and the transformation of language in the s. XXI. The influence of ICT. - Audiovisual narrative, the art of telling stories through illustrations, photographs, and videos. The assessment of the LoeL App was very positive, as reflected in the results of the two testing phases carried out with young people and youth workers. Its application in informal and non-formal educational environments was highlighted by the latter, as one of the great added values of this product. The creation of the Guide for Youth Workers, and the availability of the materials and resources generated for the training carried out is also an additional element that facilitates the implementation of youth empowerment initiatives in the field of emotional management.