Projects

Achizitii in proiect

www.laprof.eu

Language Learning for Professionals in ICT and Agriculture

LaProf is a Multilateral Project (Key Activity 2) that aims at promoting language awareness to immigrating workforce in two particular sectors, ICT and agriculture. The main goal is to provide access to language learning resources that will help candidate immigrants get more familiarized with the terminology and cultural issues in their sectors, through developing and disseminating a number of language learning exercises. The pilot user communities addressed are (a) ICT teachers living in Estonia (and the Baltics, in general) who want to move to and work in Finland, and (b) agricultural professionals living in Romania who want to move to and work in Greece.

LaProf is a Multilateral Project that aims at promoting language awareness to immigrating workforce in two particular sectors, ICT and agriculture. The main goal is to provide access to language learning resources that will help candidate immigrants get more familiarized with the terminology and cultural issues in their sectors, through developing and disseminating a number of language learning exercises. The pilot user communities addressed are (a) ICT teachers living in Estonia (and the Baltics, in general) who want to move to and work in Finland, and (b) agricultural professionals living in Romania who want to move to and work in Greece.

Significant attention is given to encouraging the learning of European official languages (such as English, French, Finnish, and Greek) as foreign languages in order to help European citizens from Estonia and Romania to understand better the working environment and culture of the targeted countries (i.e. Finland and Greece), which have languages that are notably less widely used and taught. Both awareness raising activities, and development and dissemination of language learning materials will be taking place. To reinforce the acquisition of language and cultural competencies by its targeted user groups, as well as to raise awareness for the targeted languages, LaProf will develop and promote language learning methodologies and resources that will try to motivate the particular categories of language learners, in order to enhance their capacity for language learning.

As the main output, LaProf will develop a wide variety of language learning exercises for its clearly defined user groups. The targeted learning resources will, on one hand, focus on language learning of the targeted languages, but will also try to reflect the embedded cultural context of the destination countries and sectors. Summarizing the LaProf outputs, the following will be produced:
• A language learning framework that will outline the background, topics, working culture, and relevant terminology of the targeted sectors and destination countries;
• A variety of multilingual language learning exercises (at least 20 that will be translated and adapted in English, French, Romanian, Hungarian, Estonian, and Russian), which will be made publicly available and accessible online;
• Additional learning resources such as a Learner’s Guide that will contain the background knowledge that learners should have before taking the language learning exercises, culture-aware resources that will facilitate their preparation for immigration in the destination countries, as well as pedagogical guidelines and tips for the language teachers;
• An online environment (the LaProf Web portal) through which the learners will be able to search for and access all the above learning resources and methodologies.

One aspect where LaProf is expected to demonstrate important impact is the encouragement of innovation in the development of effective and high quality language learning and teaching tools for the two particular sectors that are targeted: teachers’ education and professionals’ (vocational) education. By using the developed pedagogical approach and the produced learning materials, LaProf aims to enable targeted user groups to improve the preparation of their translocation process.