Online Language Support (OLS)

Dear Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps national agencies,

Happy birthday OLS! July marks the one-year anniversary since the Online Linguistic Support was moved to the EU Academy learning platform and became Online Language Support.

With 29 languages, a growing selection of learning material, and the online communities, we’re here to help the mobility participants make the most of their studying and working time in another country. There are now more than 100 000 members in the core area of OLS and over 30 000 members in the open area. That’s a reason to celebrate!

With the summer holidays nearly here, Erasmus+ and EU Solidarity Corps participants can put aside the books and explore other aspects of their host countries. Which is why this month we would like to highlight the blog articles the community managers publish regularly.

These provide mobility participants with interesting, useful and entertaining content about the language they’re studying, their host country, its history, the achievements of some of the people who speak it, and how they use the language to shape their identities. We rely on your precious support and commitment to spread the word among your mobility participants about the OLS Blogs, and to invite them to join the forums.

We’ve highlighted three great examples, among the many available on OLS, in the feature languages section.

The articles can be found in each OLS Community, in the OLS Blogs, under the Interactions section on the right of your screen.

Regards,
The OLS team

In the French B2 level course, mobility participants can find a topic that is particularly relevant in the European Year of Skills: the role of artisans in an age of mass production. 

Students can test their reading and comprehension skills with the help of three short texts that give a snapshot of French artisans: jewellery maker Pierre, ceramic artist Nine and vegan bag maker Marion. They describe how they came to find their passion and mention their concerns with transmitting skills to the next generation, and the importance of keeping traditions and ancestral knowledge alive. Mobility participants can access the course by clicking on the link below.

Help us keep mobility participants aware of new features and developments on the platform, by downloading the communication materials for July below (toolbox). Prepared by the OLS team, it contains posts and visuals to share on your social media networks, and an email to send to participants. Make use of both to reach as many participants as possible.

Kindly note that to download the toolbox with its communication materials, you must first login on the EU Academy and then enrol in this course.

Students can do an exercise in preview or normal mode. Each option lets them go through the exercise. The only difference is that in preview mode, they do not get marked and the results are not recorded. It’s great for making a dry run through the content to see what lies in store.