Project Coordinator

Luminar Foundation

Luminar Foundation from Poland is the project coordinator. At Luminar Foundation we strongly believe that internationalisation of education brings about a positive change in education and the society at large. Luminar Foundation curates a space for students, educators and administration at education institutions, non-governmental bodies, representatives of local and central government to carry out a dialogue leading to increased quality of education at various types of education institutions in the globalising environment. We have created and organised a discussion forum for the leaders in higher education, Leadership Forum in Higher Education.

In its daily work between the editions of the Leadership Forum, Luminar Foundation helps to increase cooperation between the universities in Central and Eastern Europe in the various aspects of internationalisation, engaging in bilateral cooperation, contributing to research and developing new tools in internationalisation. Luminar Foundation also increasingly cooperates with secondary and primary schools on the issues on internationalisation of education, especially in the aspects of global teaching and learning. Luminar Foundation performs analyses, needs assessments, programme evaluations and other services to better serve the international education community.

Currently coordinating two Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships projects: one in Higher Education - CLIL in Medical Education: Reaching for Tools to Teach Effectively in English in a Multicultural and Multilingual Learning Space (CLILMED) and one in School Education - ENGLIFE: Strengthening Teachers' Digital Readiness for a Lifetime English Language Education.

website: luminarfoundation.org

Project Partner

Atlantic Language

Atlantic Language is a premium English language school, located in Ireland with centres in Galway and Dublin, which has been providing English language courses for international students for 25 years. Atlantic Language is recognised by Eaquals as a provider of excellence in language education, ACELS, a service of Quality and Qualifications Ireland, for English Language Teaching (ELT) and is a member of Quality English, ALTO, and MEI and a recognised Erasmus+ course provider associated with Leargas.

In recent years, Atlantic Language has developed its offering of specialised English language courses for Higher Education Academics and for Administrators involved in internationalisation programmes on university campuses, primarily through the Erasmus+ Programme with programmes offered on School Education Gateway. Atlantic's Academic Team have designed curricula in response to the needs identified by HEIs throughout Europe who teach, work or research through the medium of English. Current programmes offered include Academic Writing and Presentation Skills, CLIL for Educators, English for Professional Communication, English for the Educational Workplace, Language Teacher Refresher Course, Public Speaking for Academics and Intensive General English. Atlantic Language collaborates with several universities in providing Academic Training courses including Szent István University, University of South Bohemia, Universidad de Cordoba, Salzburg University and VIVES.

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become the umbrella term describing both learning a subject such as physics or geography through the medium of a foreign language (such as English) and improving that language by studying a content-based subject. In the course of learning the method at Atlantic Language, participants develop and improve their understanding, expertise and skills related to CLIL in their pedagogical context. This raises a range of important issues among students, teachers and lecturers for whom English is an additional language. CLIL methodology workshops and seminars at Atlantic Language provide the necessary tools that higher education lecturers need in order to guide understanding and support the learning of their students. Development of competences in this area help educators to find solutions in motivating learners, adapting texts, selecting and designing interactive tasks, sequencing content in lectures and lessons, supporting students' language development and output and developing students' cognitive and critical thinking skills. This helps to increase the quality of education, retain more students and attract talented international students.

website: atlanticlanguage.com

Project Partner

ITT Malafarina

ITT G. Malafarina is a secondary high school attended by computer programmers, surveyors, electrical, graphics and communication technicians. Its more than 600 students are aged 14-19. Most of them are lower and middle social class whose tenor is mainly based on agriculture, handicraft, fishing and seasonal tourist activities. The school also hosts an increasing number of migrants, sons of non-Eu citizens and some Sen students. Staff and students are enrolled in several Erasmus projects. Students have the opportunity in the afternoon to attend music, ceramics, theatre, financial, technological labs. The main goals of the school are: to guide students for an active role both as professionals and as citizens in a democratic society and to encourage an attitude of European unity providing them with factive competences.

website: itmalafarina.edu.it

Project Partner

International School

The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IB) has accredited the International School as IB World School, authorising the International School to implement the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme. The International School is also an accredited Cambridge International School. The school implements Primary, Secondary and A-levels curricula. Pursuant to the decisions of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the International School was granted a permission to implement the curriculum for general education for children aged 5-19.

Our School takes great care that the educational approach includes critical thinking skills of all of our students whereas the curriculum is developed to be project based teaching lined with practical education. We strive to collaborate with many institutions where our students can strengthen their work ethic and learn about valuable skills in the realm of their future professional choice.

Peer tutoring and mentorship programmes are a part of our behavioural and educational support system to students. While students can be supported academically by their peers in peer-tutoring programme, they are also supported by their teacher-mentors, who guide their social-emotional development.

Classrooms at International School come equipped with interactive whiteboards, also known as smart whiteboards which enrich lessons by making them more dynamic, student-centered and interesting. Interactive whiteboards support various kinds of multimedia file formats, the content of which can be highlighted and zoomed in on. These modern whiteboards make the teaching materials more engaging and easier to follow. At International School, tablets and laptops are used as effective learning and teaching aids.

Students are supported even when they aren't present at the school - by using our Distance Learning platform, students can access their live-streamed lessons, materials and subject teachers using just their mobile or desktop app. This way, International School offers quality education wherever and whenever.

As an important part of the LINK edu Alliance, the International School has from day one met and implemented the high criteria and official standards that make the prestigious LINK educational community recognisable around the world.

website: iss.edu.rs

Project Partner

LO Dubiecko

Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Ignacego Krasickiego was established in 1948. The school is located in a small town near Przemyśl country, in the south-east of Poland. Dubiecko is the seat of administrative district called Gmina Dubiecko. It lies on the southern Poland's San River approximately 28 kilometres west of Przemyśl and 36 kilometres south-east of the regional capital Rzeszów. The town has a population of 1150. The school is named after a famous Poland's leading Enlightenment Polish poet, Ignacy Krasicki, who was born in Dubiecko.

Dubiecko and the nearby villages create a picturesque landscape and are atractive for nature lover tourists. Also, the region is close to the Bieszczady Mountains, which is a mountain range that runs from the extreme south - east of Poland and north-east of Slovakia through to western Ukraine. The region is famous for its unspoiled wildlife, it's full of hiking trails and attracts loads of tourists not only from Poland.

Liceum in Dubiecko gives to its students an opportunity to choose the subjects they want to learn. Here they can develop their skills and gain a success according to their abilities. Our school isn't big and that is a real advantage because we approach each student individually. We teach in small groups what gives the teachers the possibility to discover students needs and capacities. The students can take part in after-school activities such as theatre classes and various activity clubs. Moreover, they can play in a school band "Black'n'Red"

The school takes part in the Polish-German exchange. The partner school is Christian von Mannlich Gymnasium from Homburg. Last year we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the exchange. The exchange is co-financed from the funds of Polish-German Youth Cooperation.

Our school is under the patronage of the Chemical Faculty of the Rzeszów University of Technology. Thanks to the fact our students can take part in laboratory workshops.

We also started cooperation with the Institute of Polish Studies and Journalism.

Our students have great hearts and willingly organize and participate in charity events. We regularly take part in:

• Noble Gift- the whole school joins the campaign and collects food and clothes for those in need.
• Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity- our volunteers raise money for charity.
• Collecting food for dogs and cats in need at the animal adoption centre.
• Action organized by the foundation "Rock'n'Roll" "Give a Hair".

website: LO Dubiecko

Project Partner

CLV LO Twarda

CLV Liceum Ogólnokształcące z Oddziałami Dwujęzycznymi im. Bohaterek Powstania Warszawskiego is a new-comer to the secondary school offerings of Warsaw. Our philosophy is to create a school where students can develop their academic interests, broaden their horizons and receive education that will allow them to undertake studies at universities both in Poland and abroad.

CLV LO focuses on educating students in three profiles: humanities, languages, and mathematics. In addition, our school offers young people education in bilingual classes, which means that certain subjects, depending on the class profile, are taught partly or entirely in English. These are usually Maths, Physics, Geography, History and Social Studies. The curriculum also includes an extended number of English lessons. On average, students attending bilingual classes have 6 hours of English per week, with one additional class conducted by a native speaker. This educational programme will allow students to achieve an advanced proficiency level in English.

Currently there are approximately 650 students attending our school and 60 teachers employed, 10 of them being English teachers.

website: liceumtwarda.edu.pl

Project Partner

The Nordic
EdTech Forum N8

The Nordic EdTech Forum - N8 - brings together 180 founders of education innovation companies and evangelists from 8 Northern European countries: Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania. The Nordic EdTech Forum was founded in 2016 by Märt Aro (DreamApply) and Ernest Jenavs (Edurio) to share similar experiences between the EdTech founders and support them in achieving their mission.

Nordic EdTech Forum is in charge of the EngLife's repository creation in this project, and is actively involved in other outputs of this project with its representatives Petra Kucharova and Märt Aro.

The main aim of the Nordic EdTech Forum is to offer a platform for sharing experiences, information and support to its members by:

• Bringing together and building a network of founders of innovation and EdTech companies.
• Having public and political representation of education innovation company founders.
• Opening discussions about innovation in education between EdTech founders and other market stakeholders.
• Sharing experience and learning from each other.
• Informing market stakeholders on how to cooperate with EdTech companies.
• Improvíng access to funding for education innovation companies in the Nordic region.

Expenditure on education globally is ~5 trillion EUR / year, which makes it one of the biggest cost articles for governments / taxpayers. On one hand it means that it is a very important area to improve as each innovation may have a significant impact on everyone's lives. It also means that the next biggest company in the world could be an education company. And we would like to see that those companies would represent Nordic values of cooperation, human rights, transparency etc.

• Nordic EdTech Forum's impact on the international and national levels:
• In cooperation with the UN we co-authored a vision for EdTech ecosystem development.
• Contributed to vision for Next Gent GovTech, by Estonian CTO.
• Contributed to further development of the European EdTech Alliance.
• Furthered dialogue with the World Bank, OECD, EU, and many others.

website: nordicedtechforum.org

Project Partner

Platon

Platon is a school with future perspective. The school pursues with great interest and a creative mind the developments in the field of education; it constantly sets new goals holding at the same time an outstanding position in the educational scene. Platon schools (Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary Lifelong Learning Centre) is a modern educational institution with 570 learners and 90 staff.

Through the use of the most up-to-date facilities, a diverse curriculum, experienced and skilled teaching staff and, most importantly, through consistency on principles and respect towards pupils and parents, our school has been struggling during the last ten years for the accomplished education of our pupils. Exploiting community based and participatory approaches, engage relevant local and regional stakeholders to address educational challenges.

Platon is affiliated to: Katerini Municipality, International Hellenic University, District Educational Authority of Pieria, Chamber of Commerce of Pieria, Olympus Festival, Volunteering team of Pieria, Cultural and Athletic clubs.

website: platon.edu.gr

1. Performing the "Analysis on the English Language Acquisition Potential among Teens in a Digital Era"

How are digital resources used in the English language classrooms? What digital environment Junior students access recreationally? How can this time be used for language learning? The result is an analysis report on the English language learning environment in project partners countries and the behaviour of the target groups.

Analysis on the English Langauage Acquisition Potential
- click to download the Analysis (PDF 938 KB)   

2. Creating a seminar module on "Exchanging good practice on language teaching and learning in highly volatile times"

Where is my institution in the process of teaching methods upgrade? How am I as a teacher prepared to teach in changing environments? What are the currently available methods to teach in an international and intercultural English language classroom? What online re-sources are available to teachers and how is technology related to education? The output is in a form of reusable guidance material for a seminar module for the benefit of project partners and English language teachers not in the project, wishing to organise a similar seminar at their home institutions;

Mapping Language Teaching and Learning in Highly Volatile Times: How to Exchange Good Practice
- click to download file (PDF 8.95 MB)  

Exchanging good practice on language teaching and learning in highly volatile times: The Global Teaching Environment
- click to download file (PDF 9.61 MB)

3. Preparing the "Self-Assessment of Competencies of an English Language Teacher for the Future"

Self-Assessment of Competencies of an English Language Teacher for the Future" is an online tool helping to increase in self-awareness among English language teachers about their own knowledge and skills related to their profession.

Framework of digital competencies for the self-assessment tool
- click to download file (PDF 428 KB)  

Self-Assessment Tool of Competencies of an English Language Teacher for the Future
- click to download file (XLSX 366.38 KB)

4. Developing a Digital Resources Repository

What online tools are there? What quality and value do they represent? How can they be included in the methodology of teaching English with the aid of technology? We reviewed existing digital resources and provided their definitions and application for the wide use from our website. The Digital Resources Repository is an online database in the form of a searchable website available globally to English language teachers, strengthening their teacher's toolbox.

Digital Resources Repository
- click link to repository

5. Researching, developing and writing a Methodological Framework on Integrated English Learning for Digital Native Junior Students: A Pedagogical Approach

How to achieve goals set to improve teachers' competencies to teach more effectively in a space which inherently includes the digital dimension and contribute to their development as professionals? How to assure that the approach works? EngLife will a) develop, b) test and c) refine a comprehensive approach to an English language programme design and contribute to the development of the profession of English language teachers, at the same time providing solutions relevant to today's generation of students.

The test phase of the methodology involved a designated students body from each school for a semester long e-Twinning project, whereby the EngLife methodology was used by teachers with an active participation of the students. The result ia a methodology published online: a comprehensive, innovative approach to language teaching which can take place both inside and outside of the classroom (and, in certain crisis situations, temporarily entirely online), which strengthens the profession of English language teachers in secondary education worldwide.

Methodological Framework on Integrated English Learning for Digital Native Junior Students
- click to download file (PDF 9.72 MB)  

6. Creating and delivering the EngLife Methodology Workshop (C2) and creating the Train-the-Trainer Module

Each school Partner recruited participant teachers for this workshop who 1) tested and implemented the methodology and 2) tought other teachers in their communities the EngLife approach. During the workshop teachers presented their own practices to decide which ones support the methodology and practiced how to actually translate the existing courses and programmes in teaching English into the EngLife approach.

They also discussed issues related to cyber safety and well-being of students in increasingly online learning conditions. Importantly, the teachers learnt techniques in the train-the-trainer model, whereby gaining a skill further propagating this innovative methodology they helped create. The result is a reusable guidance material which enables English language teachers at secondary education to train other teachers in the EngLife Methodology.

This material provides a train-the-trainer frame for teachers. The model is a training strategy whereby the trainer (an expert) trains others and simultaneously teaches them how to train more persons to use the given solution. Train-the-trainer module also develops teachers’ competence in adapting to the varying roles of a teacher in a new an environment, including communicating effectively, designing innovative tasks and activities commensurate with learners' needs and abilities, demonstrating positive values and behaviours, as well as supporting, coaching and mentoring learners in their process of learning.

Reusable guidance material for a train-the-trainer module
- click to download file (PDF 35 MB)   

7. Designing and developing an online course "EngLife: Teaching English for a Life-time"

This Online Course is a tool intended for teachers wanting to increase the effectiveness of their language teaching and modernise education delivery in their classrooms. It will provide useful technology insights and operational guidelines for how to manage the change in the teaching approach and how to implement teachers’ own professional development piloted during the project. It is a summary of the entire process.

Teaching English for a Lifetime: How to use digital technology to teach teenagers
- A free online course teachers   

8. Researching, developing and writing "Policy recommendations on the use of on the use of technology in English language teaching"

How do we assure that the approach used in this project reaches institutions which decide on the shape of English language education today? How to involve all relevant stake-holders in the discussion? The result is a policy document which can be shared without limit.

Policy Recommendation document
- click to download file (PDF 2.30 MB)