EuroBusiness Language Skills - Transfer of Innovation – (Ref. no. LLP/LdV/ToI/2007/RO/008) Daniela Lupuleasa Economic and Administrative College, Iasi, Romania Cezar Vrinceanu EuroEd Foundation, Iasi, Romania

Interface The platform interface of the international languages for business is intuitive, easy to be used, made up three areas. b c a

The left panel The left panel contain the course Business Languages and the auxiliary materials: Business Culture, Glossary, Personal Development.

The right panel The right panel allows the creation of a user account, the acces to the user’s account or the management of the personal information.

The central area The cental area has a horizontal superior menu and offers general information about the learning platform for foreign languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish), for business aims, target group, communication, certification...

The central area or useful information to the attendants (user guide, statistics, user’s level).

The lower part In the lower part one can find information about this Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation and European financing.

Administrator There is a tree/hierarchical structure of the administrators.

Groups In my capacity as an administrator at the Economic and Administrative College Iasi, I can create groups of pupils and teachers.

Group code Each group is associated with a code.

New user When I add a new user, I have to include him into a certain group using the group code.

Administrator The administrator can add groups, remove groups or visualise the statistics of the group. 13 2

Status user After the creation of the group, the users of the group are added and their status is defined: administrator, tutor or user(learner) and the foreign languages he may study.

Administrator The administrator can edit the information about the user, remove the user or view the statistics of the user.

The group statistic The group statistic indicates the number of users and the foreign languages studied by the group members.

The user’s statistic The user’s statistics indicate the activities, the number of uses their and the time interval when these activities were made.

User’s level The user must complete the self- assessement checklist to determine his language level: A2 (basic user) or B1 (independent user) and the level of the course.

Dialogue The user can hear the dialogue or press Skip and see all the text of the dialogue. There are two types of words: highlighted with blue or red. The words marked with blue reffer to grammar and the user can access the grammar explanations which are attached to the unit. The words marked with red can be explained by synonyms, helping the user to improve his vocabulary.

The most appreciated activities Practice The pupils were asked to apply the knowledge acquired, to demonstrate that they understood the dialogues and texts;

The most appreciated activities Games Pupils were stimulated to use their knowledge and get involved in learning by challenge.

The most appreciated activities Simulation This activity creates problem situations and pupils are asked to identify the correct answer.

The interactive activities The interactive activities help pupils to learn from their own mistakes. By these activities, pupils learn in their own pace, the artificial competition is eliminated, there isn’t a strict hierarchy between pupils. Pupils are not always scolded when they simply get bad scores or marks. The stress is reduced, the accent being laid on the positive stimulation and the activities centred on pupils. The learning has a personal means, the pupils are involved in a competition with themselves, the mechanisms of internal motivation are triggered. The pupils are actively involved in learning and developing their linguistic skills as they want to get better scores.

Simulation By means of the problems created pupils are in the situation of taking decisions (as an employer, employee or colleague), must address politely by means of the foreign language.

Convert knowledge into conduct Through the foreign languages learning platform pupils use the knowledge acquired at the speciality subjects, the economical subjects, from a cross-curricular perspective and transfer the knowledge between various subjects that stimulate imagination and creativity and help pupils to convert knowledge into conduct.

Virtual enterprise In our school pupils simulate the business activities by virtual enterprises and apply the problems proposed through simulations on the platform. The pupils participate to trade virtual enterprises and use their knowledge in business and linguistic skills. The presentation of an enterprise in a foreign language helps pupils to reflect their professional evolution to integrate on the European labour market.

Key competences The platform for learning foreign languages by business help teachers to develop key competences (communication in foreign languages, learning to learn, interpersonal, social, civical competences, interest for entrepreneuring).

Auxiliary material The teacher can use the platform as an auxiliary material, integrated within the classes, stimulating pupils to use Internet for finding information and using modern communication by or blended learning/elearning. By elearning pupils are helped to develop the techniques for mental activities.

Personal development Nowadays, in the knowledge society the platform helps teacher to increase the responsibility of pupils in connection with personal development in school.

Partnership between teacher and pupils The teachers and pupils become partners in learning, the teacher helping the pupils to evolve and appreciate their development. In school pupils are learned to learn and are prepared for lifelong learning which support their professional evolution.