Read the OLS Newsletter online version | Catalogue number: EC-AT-23-011-EN-Q
  15/11/2023  
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Online Language Support (OLS)

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IN THIS EDITION
EDITORIAL
November 2023

Dear Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps national agencies,

after the success of the first edition of the OLS Video Contest, we have launched a second one. The call for the new contest has been published in each OLS language learning community, and we appeal to you, the national agencies, for your invaluable help in promoting the contest among Erasmus+ and European Solidary Core participants – see the New features and content section for more details.

This month, we would like to show you some examples of how mobility participants are providing their own content. Our community managers are interviewing OLS members about their experiences with learning a language, as part of the “My Language Learning Journey” initiative. You will find links to the interviews in the Community managers and forums.

And in the Feature languages this month, we visit countries in north-eastern, central and south-eastern Europe: Lithuania, Slovakia and North Macedonia

Regards,

The OLS team

NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT

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We are happy to announce that the new OLS video contest has been launched under the motto: “The OLS video contest is back – get ready to participate!”. Please let mobility participants know that they have until 4 February 2024 to submit their entries. Continuing our past edition’s success, mobility participants have the opportunity to win one of 10 Interrail Global Passes.

To participate, mobility participants have to create a short video from one to three minutes long. They can choose a theme for their video: a fun pronunciation challenge, an anecdote about learning a new language, or what motivated them to start learning a new language.

To submit the video, they can post it on their favourite social media platform with the hashtag #OLSCommunityStories, and then paste the link to it into the participation form, which also has all the rules.

If you have not yet done so, please go here and watch the inspiring videos the winners of the first contest submitted.

COMMUNITY MANAGERS & FORUMS

Here’s a fresh reminder about the OLS forums, where mobility participants can join discussions with their peers about topics like the language they are learning or about the country they are visiting. We highlight the infinitely precious role of community managers in the community managers and forums section. They are there to provide invaluable advice to all newcomers, encourage students to learn, participate in the forums, and answer their questions.

National authorities, we kindly ask you to encourage beneficiary organisations to motivate users to participate in the forums.

Our community managers are interviewing OLS members about their experiences with learning a language, as part of our initiative “My Language Learning Journey”.

Here are some of the interviews so far:

  • A student from Croatia tells our Portuguese Community Manager why she chose Porto for her mobility.
  • Bulgarian Community Manager finds out from a Spanish student how the OLS platform helped her on mobility in Bulgaria.
  • An Italian student tells our Spanish Community Manager what surprised him about Madrid.

Three screenshots of blogs on the Online Language Support platform

The “My Language Learning Journey” articles are published in the OLS Blog sections of each community. 

Please let your mobility participants know of the possibility to express themselves on the forums of each community and share their stories. They can contact the community managers on the forums directly, or by sending them a private message on EU Academy. Students will need to reply to questions such as: tell us about yourself, your language learning journey, and your mobility experience.

Videos or photos can be also added.

Please remember to inform your new mobility participants about the OLS forums. The links can be found on the right-side panel of each language learning community.

FEATURE LANGUAGES

Lithuanian is one of the two Baltic languages, along with Latvian. On 16 March every year, Lithuania celebrates “Day of Knygnešys” – Day of the Book Smuggler. This is the birthday of Jurgis Bielinis, the man behind the country’s largest book smuggling operation, which helped to keep the Lithuanian language alive after a ban was imposed on written forms of Lithuanian in 1864. It was lifted in 1904. See the Lithuanian discovery video.

 
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Slovak has been influenced by Czech and several other languages, such as Polish, Hungarian, Latin and German. The German word for coins, “münzen” became “mince” in Slovak. When Slovaks borrow words from other languages, such as English and Italian, the spelling is modified to help Slovak speakers pronounce them: “weekend” became "víkend", and Italian for quality, “qualita”, became “kvalita”. See our Slovak discovery video.

 
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Macedonian is part of the South Slavic language family that has been influenced by Greek, Turkish and Serbian. It uses the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the alphabet invented by Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century. Watch the Macedonian discovery video.

 
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COMMUNICATION TOOLBOX

A woman typing on a laptop with one hand and holding a cellphone in the other

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

 
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TIPS

Mobility participants can add photos to their posts and replies in the forums.

Adding a photo to a new post is easy. Participants just need to click on “Add a new discussion topic” (Step 1 in the image below), then click on the picture icon above the text box (Step 2 - “insert or edit image”). Finally, they need to select the photo they want to use and add a short description (Step 3).

It’s important to remember that the photos must be taken by the mobility participant and their file size should not exceed 500 MB. 

They must also not be under copyright restrictions. Photos that are free to use or that can be shared publicly, such as those under a Creative Commons license, are acceptable.

Screenshots of the OLS platform illustrating how to upload photos

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