We wanted to guarantee and improve the quality of foreign language teaching and we also concentrated of methodology of language teaching, Another main focus lay on acquiring competences and knowledge on the function of the European Union and democracy education and how to improve political/democracy education in lessons with learners. By scheduling trainings in which also teachers from the host countries partcipated we wanted to offer opportunities to enable professional exchange of experiences and finding partners for school cooperations. One objective also was to provide insight into other European school systems. By doing dissemination activities the participants helped the regional school development plan which includes internationalisiation, transfer of good practises and improvement of teaching quality.
Bildungsdirection Upper Austria has a European Development plan to foster teachers´and learners´ knowledge and competence concerning language abilities, EU and democracy education, didactics and methodology and by and large the main objectives of the European Union. We expected to create an impact on the school development processes of the participating instituions and try to achieve changes on a regional level by the dissemination activities of the participants and the participating insitutions. In the long run all our investments in teacher training should have positive impact on the learners and opening up these young people to employment which includes international contacts, as Upper Austria depends on companies with more than 80% of export and these companies have world wide and European partners. The young people should learn from the beginning that in the workplace they will need foreign languages, openmindedness and professional competence. To reach this Upper Austria has to equip its teachers with competences, knowledge and experiences to convey them to learners. BD Upper Austria established teacher training e.g.in English & Spanish, in democracy education, in didactis and also job shadowing activities.