Online Language Support (OLS)

Dear Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps national agencies and beneficiary organisations,

A warm winter greeting to all of you and a special welcome to the recently joined beneficiary organisations. We’re thrilled that you are part of the OLS newsletter family! Curious about the content and wondering why you're receiving this newsletter? We have all the details for you right here. 

It’s bursting with material for you to motivate mobility participants to use Online Language Support (OLS) to learn the language of the country where they’re studying, working or volunteering. Our communication toolbox (see below) contains ready-made social media posts, images and texts you can send to participants. You can select those you consider relevant to your field.

In this month’s newsletter you can get buzzing in Slovenian, find out if you’re a gloved snowball thrower in German, bite into the three treasures in English, or build a brighter future in French. 

Take the opportunity to encourage mobility participants to join us in celebrating Greek Language Day on 9 February and International Mother Language Day on 21 February, which is a reminder of how important languages and multilingualism are to promoting inclusion. And what better way to do it than with OLS.

Happy reading and language learning!

Regards,

The OLS team

OLS regularly publishes new language learning modules for all levels that learners can use to navigate everyday situations. Here you will find a selection of what’s fresh and exciting.

Remember that A1 and A2-level courses are available for all 29 languages, while B1 and B2-level modules are available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Language learners first need to be enrolled in the level to access the modules.

Italian A1: Sarah is a volunteer in an association. Students will follow a discussion between Laura and Jonathan as they look at online profiles of candidates to become their new flatmate (coinquilino). 

Bulgarian A2: I’m going to give her the latest comic book. What present to buy someone is a question we all have to answer a few times a year. This module will help students answer it. 

German B1: Ich teste ein neues Restaurant (I’m trying out a new restaurant). Anyone who enjoys food and cooking can use this module to build up a rich stock of adjectives so they can cook up rich and flavourful sentences and spice up their conversations. 

French B2: Comment façonner la ville de demain? (How to create the towns of tomorrow?) This lesson will equip budding urbanists, architects and city planners with the vocabulary to lay a solid foundation for their career and contribute to building green, sustainable cities.

OLS forums and discussion topics encourage students to hone their language skills with their peers, under the guidance of a community manager who is a native speaker. Here’s a sample of the latest posts from four community managers. If mobility participants cannot access the links, they first need to join the community for that language.

English: Street food 

What better way to discover the heart of a country, its people and language than through its food? The first part of English community manager Iya’s street food series, Hong Kong, Trinidad & Tobago, and Wales, looks at laverbread, bake and shark, doubles, and the three treasures. Learners can take part in the discussion and talk about exotic foods they’ve tasted on their travels. 

German: ‘island-giftedness’ and other strange expressions

If a German speaker says you’re a ‘Handschuhschneeballwerfer’ (glove + snowball + thrower), do you know what that says about your character? The German language allows for fascinating, and hilarious, word combinations. Community manager Carmelito introduces us to six expressions and explains what they mean in his blog article. Encourage students to tell the community about ones they know – or have invented themselves. 

French: introduce yourself to the community 

Years from now, students will be finishing their PhDs or great first novels in French and remembering how it all began with that shaky two-line introduction they wrote in an OLS forum. Mobility participants can join community manager Lilas in the discussion thread Introduce yourself to the community. Those who want to build their vocabulary should see the previous article Top 100 most used words in French. 

Iceland: The pros and cons of travel adventures 

Fortunately, the eight ‘positive pros’ outnumber the five ‘realistic cons’ of living and studying in the land of fire and ice in this blog article by community manager Íris. Find the article here. 

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

It’s important that mobility participants find a language learning method that they enjoy and that best suits their learning style – sometimes finding it is a matter of trial and error. This can include taking part in an online chat with native speakers, listening to and memorising songs, watching a favourite TV series, reading a book, using flashcards, or getting stuck into the grammar straight away. 

Each OLS course has videos, reading and listening exercises. The forums are great for writing and interaction with fellow learners and with the community manager.

For the grammar buffs in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, additional, in-depth courses can be found by scrolling to the bottom of the learning community and resources for each language, clicking on ‘Curriculum’ and ticking the ‘Grammar’ box.