Online Language Support (OLS)

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

This month we’re giving you a snapshot of how far OLS has come since July 2022. There are now 200 000 participants in the 29 language communities and over 1 280 hours of learning content for levels A1 to B2. 

There’s a lot of new content coming online, and we’ll give you a preview of it in this newsletter. We encourage you to share this information with your mobility participants and have them enrol in the courses – and stick with them until they get their certificates. 

We celebrate the UN’s English and Spanish language days on 23 April. To mark the occasion and promote multilingualism, social inclusion and professional development in English and Spanish, we highlight some exciting news in these two OLS communities.

Regards,

The OLS team

Well done to our community managers for keeping learners motivated. Thanks to their hard work, the number of participants has more than tripled, from 65 000 in July 2022 to 200 000 at present.

The second edition of the OLS video contest helped to promote activity in the forums. It ran from 30 October last year to 4 February. A total of 61 people from 17 language communities entered. Well done to the Spanish community for their enthusiasm, submitting 17 videos, followed by Dutch and French (7 videos each) and Portuguese (4 videos). The 20 shortlisted videos, including the 10 winners, can be found on the OLS Community Stories page. See here for the list of winners, or find them in the Announcements section of each language community.

In the last months we piloted interactive activities in the forums, such as:

• online speaking sessions in the Spanish and Dutch communities, where community members practiced introducing themselves, speaking about their mobility programmes, travelling and language learning;
• mini-contests in the French, Italian, Estonian and Latvian communities from February 12 to 29. Community members were asked to write a caption – in the language they’re learning – for an image, for a chance to win amazing prizes. Participation was enthusiastic: five and six people entered the French and Italian version respectively, one person the Latvian contest and none in the Estonian. There were some very creative proposals!

We are going to expand those activities in all the communities. We invite you to encourage your mobility participants to stay up-to-date by checking the Announcements section. This is found in the Interactions box on the right side of each language learning community. Our community managers regularly post information about the latest OLS news and initiatives!

With a total of 1 280 hours of learning content for 29 languages, there’s a topic to interest every learner at every level, whether it's cooking, social media, or the cost of living. See below for one of the new courses in each of the 4 levels OLS offers.

In addition, for VET learners, OLS has 8 hours of content for each of the 29 languages, for A2 to B1 levels. A total of 10 topics are covered, from logistics and catering, to social work and healthcare.

B1 and B2 level-courses are available for English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The A-level courses are in all 29 languages.

The links to the courses below will take learners to the first section of that course (there are usually five sections). Learners can navigate to the next or previous section by clicking on the section titles in bold at the bottom of the page (see the TIPS section at the end of this newsletter for more info).

B2

The cost of living is rising will help mobility participants living in a flat-sharing arrangement. They will learn to discuss how to divide a rent increase among themselves.

It’s available for students of English (The cost of living is rising), French (La vie coûte cher !), German (Das Leben ist teuer), Italian (La vita costa cara!), and Spanish (¡Qué cara es la vida!).

B1

Mobility participants who want to make a career on social media should try the B1 course When I grow up I’m going to be an influencer. They will use terms like ‘engagement’ and ‘click-through rate’ to discuss the performance of their social media account.

For learners of English (When I grow up, I’m going to be an influencer!), French (Quand je serai grand, je serai influenceur(euse)), German (Später arbeite ich als Influencer/-in!), Italian (Da grande far’ l'influencer!) and Spanish (Cuando sea mayor, ¡seré influencer!)

A2

Asking someone about their childhood is a great conversation starter. The course It’s a childhood memory will help learners use the past tense to explain why an object is important to them.

A1

Learners can get cooking in 29 languages with I’m making dessert. They’ll learn to follow steps in a recipe, understand basic instructions, and discover an easy recipe associated with each language, like creamy lentil soup for English, goulash soup in Hungarian, meatballs for Swedish, and moussaka for Greek.

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

Each OLS course has several sections, up to 5 and a boost (or bonus) section. There are 2 ways to navigate through these sections:

• from the main menu (A) of the course, which is accessible by clicking on the course title (eg: click on ‘What do I need to take on mobility’ in the screenshot above); 
• or from within each section of the course, by clicking on the title in bold at the bottom left or right of the screen (B).