Case Studies

Developing European language skills is vital for today’s citizens of the European Union. They move around, travel, explore unfamiliar countries and places of interest, meet local people and interact in diverse social surroundings. People need to be equipped with quite a number of social phrases and be understood in unfamiliar circumstances.
In this context it is vital to encourage and enforce European people of different nationalities and linguistic diversity to learn less widely used foreign languages (LWUFL).
The knowledge of a foreign language facilitates faster integration into a society of a new country, encourages local communities to be more open to new cultures and traditions and increases possibilities for mobility in EU .
In accordance with the EU linguistic insight and strategy, encouraging every European to speak two more languages apart form his own native one, the project focused on providing a stimulus to the acquisition of foreign languages of minorities or neighbouring countries and English being the Lingua Franca.

- promote European citizenship via language learning;
- stimulate self-learning and LLL;
- facilitate promotion of native languages and LWUEL;
- stimulate multilingualism and the processes of the integration into multilingual context; - facilitate students' and labour force mobility in EU.

According to Daiva Malinauskiene ( SIH director and project promoter,The project adapted the lifelong learning approach in language learning. Campaign on PT motivated the target groups of different age range for self studies or learning languages at language centres. This stimulates LL process of the EU citizens.
The promotion of the languages of the minority or neighbouring countries during the campaign served as stimulus to learn LWUEL, get to know the neighbours, their culture and make them feel more comfortable and at the same time prepare to interact in a multilingual European context.
The evaluation strategy adopted and the following tools used
-an evaluation work-plan was created
- people responsible for the evaluation across the partnership agreed
- priorities for evaluation agreed
- questionnaires
- interviews
- observation
- document analysis
- reflections by the project partners
The evaluation was carried out by
- evaluating progress of every partners’ meeting
- analysing and evaluating give -back material from TG
- organising internal evaluation visits
- writing interim reports
- conducting opinion polls on the effectiveness of the language teaching tool from the learners’ perspective;
- filling in the questionnaire form prepared by external evaluator
- discussing the project with local authorities
- evaluating the campaign via interviews , informal discussions with PT users and drivers, sharing opinions with citizens in local mass media

Results
- Self-learning and life long learning (LLL) processes of the EU citizens was stimulated;
- Promotion of native languages of multinational EU residents was facilitated;
- Less widely used European languages were promoted.
- Access to individuals for language learning was facilitated.
- More language resources available from local authorities via schools were made available.
- Linguistic needs of the general public were responded to.
- Possibilities for mobility in EU labour market were increased;
- Possibilities of including non-educational institutions in the process of learning were identified
- The acquisition of a number of social phrases in the target languages as the initial stage of international communication.
Deliverable
- Phrase book and CD in target languages for people travelling through Europe.
Outcomes met the expectations. The people who got involved into language learning process in an unusual out of classroom environment-PT greatly supported this idea and following the survey results made up their minds to continue language learning or return to abandoned language studies.
Was an assessment of the quality of results carried out? If yes, which were the indicators adopted?
The assessment was carried out internally and externally. Internally-by organizing internal evaluation visits to partner countries for evaluation of their language campaigns and externally-by an external evaluator by means of questionnaire forms, participation at partner meetings, individual interviews and summarizing evaluation results.
Impact of the project
The project opened new possibilities to learn a new language and become more tolerant towards other nations, respect their culture, participate in intercultural learning. Language knowledge encourages people to open themselves to other people. The project activities resulted in an increased number of people returning to education

The project developed new solutions for language acquisition by providing an innovative out-of-classroom environment for teaching languages. The innovative solutions to the actual problems facilitated the success of the project implementation which resulted in wide visibility all over Europe and even reached US (info on the project on BBC online news page, Deutsche Welle webpage, The Christian Science Monitor, etc.). Having in mind that the European Label award encourages new initiatives in the field of teaching and learning languages, we decided to apply for the award. In addition we were encouraged to do so by the Education Exchange Support foundation.

We filled in a specially developed application for the European Label Award form, developed by the Education Exchange Foundation with an expectation to be awarded.

We applied with the expectation to be awarded.

The project was disseminated using a great variety of dissemination channels:
1. Dissemination strategy:
Template for the dissemination plan prepared and approved
Dissemination plan of each partner institution prepared and placed on the website of the project
Project dissemination situation discussed and evaluated during each partner meeting
Dissemination was carried out in the following ways:
- presenting the project in general at local and international events (conferences, educational fairs, Language day events locally and on an international level);
- providing information about the project and achieved results to other institutions and respective organizations;
- spreading information about the project via national websites of the participating institutions; information via websites and meetings of other local and international projects; the information about the project on the websites of PT companies and local authorities; information about the project in mass media (newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, newsletters);
- producing promotional materials
- displaying info about the project during national and international events, educational fairs.
2.The project was disseminated among :
-direct target groups: general public: students, elder citizens, unemployed, tourists
-indirect target groups: teachers, policy makers, public authorities, representatives from educational and cultural institutions, other project coordinators and participants, ethnic minority groups, mass media

Benefits:
-Great visibility for the project (participation at the exhibition of the 8 best language teaching and promoting projects, selected by the European commission in the framework of the European Language Day in Brussels, it was included into a compendium, it was nominated among 25 other projects for the event European Language Label of the Labels, which will take place in September, 2012 in Limassol, Cyprus)
-Possibilities for network among language learning providers
-Possibilities for sharing good practices and exploitation of the products
Impact:
Being among the nominees provides new possibilities for visibility on a much wide range of the developed ideas and results, it stimulates and encourages to create new language learning initiatives, it ensures the sustainability of the project results
Consistency of the impact
While working on any initiative, first of all we have in mind the benefits it will bring to people-our target groups. And afterwards, their high evaluation and support on the work done, is the main award for us. The satisfaction can be doubled when the initiative is awarded the European Label or any other award.

Generate an innovative or even crazy but rational ideas, which could intrigue people and would focus on their needs, develop new, playful language teaching methods, set up a good team, goal orientated. Be persistent in working towards your aim and you will succeed.

A strong and effective example of LLL policy application.
Language learning is taken out of traditional classroom - friendly community way of learning

Attention to promoting cultures and languages of the neighbouring countries and other less widely known languages;
Cross-sector project: involvemnt of community, educational institutions, administrative bodies and businesses

‘Learning by Moving’ was a creative, innovative and interactive project. Moreover this language learning project was a successful beginning for the new project ‘Languages on the Move’. The project ‘Languages on the Move’ was implemented together with another 4 Nordic – Baltic partner countries (Estonia, Denmark, Finland and Sweden). The aim of the project was to encourage and stimulate learning of Nordic and Baltic languages in the public international transport, such as international buses, ferries, trains, etc. The project was addressed to employees, students and tourists travelling between these countries.
The ‘Learning by Moving’ project attracted mass media’s attention. The information about the project was published on the BBC news, The Baltic Times journal and much more.