Online Language Support (OLS)

Dear Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps national agencies,

On September 26, OLS celebrates the European Day of Languages. The event highlights the importance of bi- and plurilingualism and intercultural understanding. It is a reminder of Europe’s rich linguistic and cultural diversity and of the importance of lifelong language learning for study, work, or mobility. The European Commission is hosting numerous events around Europe to mark the occasion.

These include an online event, Teaching language skills at the heart of the European Education Area to be held from 12:00 to 14:00 on the day.

Discussions will focus on the EU’s tools to help language teachers boost their capacity, notably Erasmus+ and the European School Education Platform.

Many language and cultural institutes, associations, universities, and schools in particular, will take part in various events and activities organised throughout the EU.

We'll connect with some of the European Day of Language events in Member States and discuss the results of the 2023 Eurydice Key Data on Teaching Languages in Europe.   

As we celebrate the European Year of Skills, it’s good to remember that multilingualism is one of eight key competences needed for personal fulfilment, employability and social inclusion.

OLS is doing its part to support these goals by providing citizens with high quality learning content for 29 languages, helping mobility participants get the most out of their studying, learning, volunteering and/or working time, while strengthening multicultural exchanges.

See New features and content for an exciting new addition to our content this month: learning videos.

Regards,

The OLS team

In one year, the number of members of the “learning community and resources” has more than doubled. It’s a great achievement and a sign of the demand for language skills. 

The forums of the top 6 learning communities (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) are also the most active, with hundreds of discussions and exchanges about language learning and mobility. 

Please keep inviting your students to find and join the OLS forums and get to know their community managers! 

Our new learning videos are a great new addition for beginner students working on basic conversation skills. There are two animated videos for each of the 29 languages on OLS that feature two or three characters in everyday situations, such as meeting someone, going shopping, asking for directions, ordering something to eat in a café or restaurant and the first day at a new workplace. 

There’s no better way to learn a language than to go out and practice in the real world. Each video is followed by a 10-question quiz for students to test their understanding.

The videos can be found by entering “basics” preceded by the language, in the search bar on the OLS home page. Here are the links to some examples for English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. 

Help us keep mobility participants aware of new features and developments on the platform by downloading the communication materials for September from the toolbox below. 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.

Are your mobility participants receiving their daily digest? The digest is sent to OLS participants for each language they have signed up to learn.

To change what they receive, students need to go to their profile (Step 1 in the image below), then select preferences in the menu on the left (Step 2). To modify the settings, they need to select turn edit mode on (Step 3).