The Improving Migrant Childrens' Academic Performance, or IMCAP, project aims to bridge the gap between immigrant parents of school age children and their teachers. As per an OECD study conducted in 2015, academic underperformance is common to most students with an immigrant background, but particularly first-generation immigrant students. Students with an immigrant background face multiple sources of disadvantage that affect their academic performance and their general well-being. IMCAP thus focuses on improving the academic performance of an immigrant student. It involves 4 Partners in 4 European Countries who will bring their expertise together to create a platform to tackle the education gap and mismatches by strengthening the profiles of educators and teaching professionals.In this context, the objectives of the project are as follows:- To prepare teachers of school age children to work in a culturally diverse classroom and actively engage parents of different backgrounds in the education process- To enable immigrant parents to engage more in the school system of the host country- To create a set of tools that will facilitate the academic success of children of immigrant parents through the adults around themIMCAP’s goal is to narrow the educational achievement gap between immigrant and non-immigrant peer. This will occur by targeting key stakeholders and assisting them with tools; a cultural handbook, a capacity-building booklet and an online networking platform. In a longer-term, the project will facilitate equal participation in society both economically and socially.

The Digital Cultural Designer (DCD) Project consists of extending and developing the digital skills and competences of young people especially in the field of culture aiming to improve cultural education through innovative online tools and methods. As young people are the main users of social media nowadays and as 2020 is the new digital era there is a need to increase the digital awareness of youth and develop their skills in IT and other technology contexts, increasing their knowledge and active participation in the activities of DCD Project and in their societies in general. Young people are the future digital leaders and entrepreneurs as youth entrepreneurship and digitalization are of the main priorities of the European Union for 2020-2021. The project aims also to introduce young adults to the concept of open data allowing them to learn and experiment with open data, corresponding to their own needs. The digital natives of today are the data literates of tomorrow. On top of that, it’s also an age group that starts to invest their own development and self-actualisation. The natives themselves and society can benefit from it. By making the open data topic understandable for youth, young people can easily experiment through interactive video series, animated clips, expert interviews and then more and more young people might try to cross the open data bridge. They can point out problems, select data based on their needs and give creative input on how to transform all this into an application. It’s important that open data become truly open to young people, as this will lead towards more and better use of it. Addressing young adults in a visual, interactive and non-linear manner, is a good way to make open data easy approachable. So, it is a must to transform digital natives into open data literates. The project will bring together 6 partners from 6 different countries (UK, CY, IT, SI, LT, IS) wishing to strengthen youth digital entrepreneurship. The main activities of the project are:1. To make national groups of experts in the LOD management for cultural activities, involving young people in order to improve and develop their digital skills concerning IT skills and data management. The experts groups will be trained through pilot courses that will test and explore open data experiments at national level improving the curriculum of young adults for the management of the LOD in the field of cultural activities. The curriculum aims to promote educational and professional mobility, starting in the countries Partners and then the disseminate the impact in other countries too. 2. To explore museum activities, libraries and archives or other pilot projects for empowering youth in management of cultural experiences also implemented through LOD, with the set up of thematic cultural digital skills and tools. The activities will involve groups of young people, invited to set up specific digital and cultural competences. The activities will start during the project and will be structurally embedded into the cultural institutions and programmes triggering benchmarking processes.3. Implementation and open data organization processes and development of cultural awareness in different sectors. For each Partner Country the level of specific intervention area will be identified.4. Development of a European network for youth organizations working in cultural and technology fields for the continuous development of innovation with particular attention to innovation and online cultural and digital services.5. Improving usability and attractiveness of virtual cultural experiences between virtual and physical experience, involving user groups in testing phases. Particular attention will be given to the involvement of schools, arts academies that will proactively participate to the design and implementation of users activities (in particular those one addressing educational and training activities).Impact on youth:• Enable understanding of EU culture diversity, needs and values;• Explore and test their digital skills;• Acquired tools for cultural needs in local communities;• Promote personal development, youth entrepreneurship and leadership;• Enable a full understanding about EU diverse cultures, values and the new digital era 'Digital Europe';Impact at national and EU level: - Increased ICT skills and knowledge of young people;- Raise awareness about cultural needs of local communities through awareness of needed cultural and digital skills and qualifications gained through their participation in the developed of ICT trainings and courses;-Facilitated recognition of the online courses, modules and the methodology by formal structures and institutions, depending on the national priorities and commitments;-tackle the digital skills gap in Europe coherent and comprehensive support for building up the digital skills needed to support reskilling and upskilling in Europe.

Self-directed learning has been described as a process where learners are responsible owners and managers of their own learning process. Self-directed learning integrates self-management (management of the context, including the social setting, resources, and actions) with self-monitoring (the process whereby the learners monitor, evaluate and regulate their cognitive learning strategies). The Internet has widely improved the possibilities for self-directed L2 language learning by giving access to a boundless amount of OER Open Educational Resources accessible ubiquitously, 24/24. These are training materials expressly developed for L2 learning based on e-books, videos, webinars, MOOCs, Apps and other specific software, available for free or for a small fee, Additionally, the web allows free access to written texts, videos and TV and radio programs in many different languages developed for native language speakers that can be used directly by intermediate and advanced L2 learners. Finally, thanks to Skype and social media, direct interaction with teachers, other learners and native speakers has become easier and cheaper. From and educational point of view, the Internet has widened the possibilities for not formal and informal learning and for individualized learning strategies, as well as for self-directed learning. Some learners are able to find their way and benefit by themselves of this large amount of resources, while others needs to be guided and supported in the process, hence the need for a L2Learning Supporter (L2LS). This project wants to explore and promote the role of the L2 Learning Supporter using the web based OER. The project will develop a methodology and a Guide on supporting L2 self-directed learning with web based OER. Other IO will be a Report in the state of the art on supporting L2 self-directed learning by using web based OER, two E-training courses based on the Guide (one addressed to L2 Learning Supporters and the other one to L2 learners), a website for supporting L2 self-directed learning. This project is submitted by a network of four L2 training providers based in FR, DE, IT, UK, plus two ‘technical’ partners specialized in E-learning and use of the internet for education (AT and PL). Thanks to the project, 240 trainers and 320 L2 adult learners will be trained to use the methodology. Additional 200 trainers and 400 L2 adult learners will use the project website developed for supporting of L2 self-directed learning. Additionally, over 15000 people belonging to the target groups will be informed about the project. Long term benefits will be an improved use of OER by L2 trainers and L2 adult learners, both producing an improvement in L2 learning and diffusion.

Millions of people desire to learn a foreign language or feel that they need to in order to find work or integrate into a new society; in fact, the Council of the EU lists multilingualism as one of its key competencies. However, it is often the case that even learners who have been studying a language for years still have trouble understanding and being understood by native speakers of the target language due to a lack of strong communication skills in their second language (L2). A lack of communicative ability in a foreign language can also cause the learner to be perceived negatively by the community, which would then hinder that person’s level of integration. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the number of adults seeking to boost their employability to skyrocket; thousands of individuals are now looking to hone their language skills through freely-accessible, online means. Though it is difficult to learn communication skills in a time like this with such limited human interaction, it is not impossible by any means. The concept of “formulaic language” in linguistics is a familiar but underused concept in L2 teaching that can increase communication skills, yet research shows a distinct lack of teaching materials that focus on this aspect of language. Formulaic language is, simply put, co-occurring strings of words used in recurring situations; idioms, collocations, multi-word verbs, and more fall into this category. The teaching of formulaic language has been proven to increase learners' acquisition of grammar, fluency, and even cultural awareness. Our project aims to compensate for this lack of formulaic language-based teaching materials by creating a handbook for teachers, an app for learners that uses all authentic sources from target languages, and an OER for teachers which provides practical teaching materials for formulaic language. The objectives of the projects are as follows:-To create a set of easily accessible teaching and learning materials that support communication skills in a foreign language-To promote the uptake of an effective teaching methodology across Europe in a digitally innovative way-To upskill foreign language teachers in providing formulaic language-based lessons for their studentsThese will be accomplished through the production of three outputs:1. Guide on teaching communication through formulaic language 2. Language learning app that uses authentic sources to teach formulaic language3. OER for teachers where they can find practical lessons and materials on teaching formulaic languageAll Intellectual Outputs will be created in 6 languages: English, Spanish, Latvian, Italian, Russian, and German. The outputs will go through pilot testing/feedback sessions to ensure top quality results. The direct target group of the project is foreign language teachers of VET providers, with the indirect group being adult foreign language learners. Associated partners will be VET/language teaching organisations at local, regional, national, and European levels. The expected impact of the project on all participants in a general sense is increased awareness of the usefulness of teaching and learning formulaic language to improve communicative competence amongst target groups and stakeholders. More specifically, the direct target group (foreign language teachers)'s expected impact will also be heightened awareness of the role formulaic language plays in second language acquisition, practical knowledge of how to teach formulaic language to improve students’ overall communicative competence, and greater access to teaching materials that focus on specific types of formulaic language through the OER (IO3). The indirect target group (foreign language learners)'s expected impact can be summarised as: improved communicative competence, increased awareness of formulaic language and its usefulness in language acquisition, both in and outside of the classroom, increased cultural awareness associated with learning the target language through authentic materials, and greater access to high-quality language learning opportunities.

"CONTEXTAccording to Common Basic Principles/EU initiatives in the field of integration, “Basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions is indispensable to integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge is essential to successful integration"" and ""Efforts in education are critical to preparing immigrants, and particularly their descendants, to be more successful and more active participants in society"". The Erasmus+ Program aims at promoting equity and inclusion by facilitating the access to learners with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities compared to their peers, “.https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/the-eu-and- integration/eu-actions-to-make-integration-work The educational tracks of those who receive residence permits should be expedited by lowering the threshold for integration training and the training following it. ""(quote from the report "" The educational tracks and integration of immigrants – problematic areas and proposals for actions"")PROJECT OBJECTIVESThe main goal of the project InclusionApp is to help RI&AS (refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers) learn the language & the culture of the host country through a mobile serious game and ood practices against social exclusion through a a Collaborative e-learning platform.Specifically the aims of the project are twofold:(a) The Design, Implementation and Evaluation of a Mobile Serious Game for learning the language & the culture of the host country (InclusionApp mobile game) for RI&AS(b) The creation of a Collaborative e-learning portal with good practices against social exclusion of RI&AS.SERIOUS GAME EVALUATIONOnce the software development is finished we will run a large scale trial in which we will involve at least 200 RI&AS (refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers) and observe their learning success and most important their inclusion in the host country with the help of our mobile serious game. We will then finilize our mobile game and share it on an EU-wide scale. Scientific publications will be published to renowned international scientific journals & conferences with the results of the evaluation.The OPEN SOURCE ACCESS to all project outputs will be guaranteed for at least 5 years after project end.PARTNER ORGANISATIONSThis initiative gathers 5 partners from Poland, Cyprus, Italy, UK and Greece.WYZSZA SZKOLA EKONOMII I INNOWACJI W LUBLINIE (Poland): University of Economics and Innovation in Lublin (WSEI) is a non-state higher education institution, funded in 2001. Welcome Home International (Belgium): Non-profit organisation providing encouragement, education, and assistance to refugees during their integration.INNOVATION FRONTIERS (Greece): An educational technology & research company expert in the design, implementation and evaluation of educational software.Eurospeak Language Schools Ltd (UK): A private English language school, accredited by the British Council, Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) and are a UKVI licensed Tier 2 General and Tier 4 General of the points based system.Tropicalastral Lda (Portugal): A private adult education provider and translation company, focused mainly on corporate clients in the Algarve area providing private executive business language lessons."