Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of Europe's economy. They represent 99% of all businesses in the EU. In the past five years, they have created around 85% of new jobs and provided two-thirds of the total private sector employment in the EU. The European Commission considers SMEs and entrepreneurship as key to ensuring economic growth, innovation, job creation, and social integration in the EU. The majority of SMEs and SME activity is concentrated in the largest EU member states. Together Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the UK account for more than 60% of the total number of SMEs as well as the share of total employment. Most of those small businesses are micro companies, what according to the EU definition are companies with less than 10 employees. Taking these factors into account, the election of the right fellow travellers is one of the key decisions for a small entrepreneur, because the chances of success or fail will largely depend on the people he/she chooses. Employees are a critical component of any business, but though in big corporations, with a specific HRM department, this election is an almost systematic process, in SMEs it is even more important. Employees are part of the delivery of the product and service. Their performance, commitment and loyalty to the job are critical, but even more in a SME. Obviously the election has to do with technical competences, but in a micro company, with a more direct and human contact, there are other aspects which are essential.A good hire is one whose skills, knowledge and abilities match well with the requirements of the job and the culture of the small business. Even more today, when studies on Europe’s future skills needs indicate that demand for specific skills in the most dynamic sectors may continue to rise in the future. Reports from the World Economic Forum such as ‘The Future of Jobs’, edited in 2016 and updated in 2018, set the new skills demanded by the labour market in the next decades in opposition to the old and declining ones. Both coincide in the necessity to develop “human factor” as differentiating element in the era of technology and robotization, fostering the soft skills (communication, creativity, cognitive flexibility, emotional intelligence, decision making, complex problem solving…) as mandatory and required weapons for those workers or entrepreneurs who want to be successful in such a changing scenario.This project is aimed for young entrepreneurs without training in human resources abilities. The soft skills for managing human resources will help entrepreneurs for the success of the company. One of the most important factors for competitiveness and success in entrepreneurs and SMEs are the importance to know how to manage your staff. The project consortium is composed of 6 organisations from 5 different EU countries (DE, SP, PO, UK and ES) in a comprehensive partnership under the coordination of Coworking Plus, consisting of a solid group of training companies with long international experience in the application of soft skills in their programs and a high demand of this kind of formation: GROWTHCOOP (Spain) and Eurospeak (UK). APSU (Portugal) will add its wide range of contacts with Portuguese companies, while Eesti People for People will contribute with its long experience in international and national training activities. Finally, INDEPCIE (Spain) is a training company specialized in coaching, EI and soft skills, which will add a plus of expertise to the program.To achieve the objectives, the partnership has identified three Intellectual Outputs:IO1 Self-Evaluation in Human Resources soft skillsIO2 Development of the Open Educational Resources in human resources soft skillsIO3 Intellectual Output 3: Inspiring Success Stories in soft skillsBy creating training tools for improving the knowledge of entrepreneurs to understand and detect soft skills, the consortium expects to achieve the overall objective of the project: to help entrepreneurs and SMEs in the implementation and development of human resources on their own companies.The project wishes to set new tools and methodologies to support start-ups and SMEs in whatever sector in enhancing their productivity, competiveness and efficiency. The consortium will use the outcomes of the project, exploiting them with different targets, in further initiatives of the same topic, disseminating them through all its channels and applying them in its internal working dynamics. Companies, teams and organizations involved in a training in soft skills are expected to show a high increase of positive work environment, team work, talent development, productivity, creativity and innovation. Moreover, and in a lower and extensive level, final customers of those companies will be direct beneficiaries (summarizing, the base of European citizens) will enjoy of a healthy emotional environment in their daily contact to all the actors involved in the project.

"""Encouraging digital competences for VET Learners in Europe"" or ""ENDIGI_VET"", is a project with the aim of contributing to the social integration of VET learners who lack basic digital competences. The project focuses on groups that have been left behind in terms of technologies and, even though they are studying, they have no motivation to take courses that allow them to acquire basic digital skills. The lack of this type of skills is even more important in groups that are in situations of social exclusion, where they face several difficulties such as the economic one (long-term unemployment), the social one (lack of access to contact with family and friends) and the personal development one (less independence to manage in current life and make all kinds of efforts, etc.).The project aims to promote training in basic digital competences among the VET learners who have no prior knowledge or interest. The project does so through the development of a motivational methodology and educational materials that follow this methodology; all with the aim that a greater number of VET learners access and complete the training in digital skills.Taking into account this context and the general objective of the project, two broad intellectual outputs will be developed:-A course in motivation methodology that will be offered to counsellors and trainers.-A course in basic digital competences aimed at VET learners. The course will make use of the developed motivation methodology and of the curriculum developed and adapted to the circumstances of the target group of the project. It will also be based on the Foundation level of the European DigComp framework and will be tested by the project partners through various pilot courses.The specific objective of the project is to improve the social integration of VET learners without digital skills, through the training of counsellors and trainers and the creation of new adapted educational materials.For this, it is first necessary to know and understand the reasons why these people lack motivation and interest in accessing digital training courses; secondly, it is necessary to develop new motivation strategies; and thirdly it is necessary to develop a study plan adapted to the target group. This will allow the staff of partner entities and professionals from all over Europe to become trained in this area and to promote the access of a greater number of people to the training that we will develop in the project, as well as encouraging them to finish that training.To this end, the Fundación de Trabajadores de la Siderurgia Integral (FTSI) has joined other entities with extensive experience that will allow the development of the programmed actions aimed at meeting the objectives:The Research and Education Centre SYNTHESIS, from Cyprus.AKMI, Training Centre from Greece.EUROSPEAK, Training Centre from the United Kingdom.The actions developed throughout the project are expected to have the following impacts:- At the level of organizations, professionals and VET learners: guidance and training of VET learners adapted to groups that lack motivation; facilitated access to educational resources for VET learners; transfer to other entities of the innovation created by the project; more trained and competent staff; integration as European professionals in different networks; improvement of staff´s motivation; and VET learners more motivated to acquire basic digital skills, to acquire personal skills (motivation, assistance, self-esteem, confidence, communication) and to acquire practical skills (filling out forms, job search, daily management, etc.).- Externally, the aim is to influence entities and authorities at the local, regional, national and European level to make use of the intellectual products developed in the project. The aim is also to support European initiatives such as ""European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience"" and to promote the development of the DigComp European framework (European framework of digital competences for citizenship developed by the Directorate General JRC of the European Commission).As a long-term benefit, we hope that the project will serve to improve the social inclusion of groups of VET learners who lack digital skills, giving a boost to their lives and achieving greater social integration through access to employment, access to training or improving their life on a personal and social level. Furthermore, the project is expected to improve the strategies of action of counsellors and trainers."

Three Organizations from Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom combined their experience and potential in response to the problem of insufficient competences of teachers in teaching foreign languages ​​to older people with low competences while using modern technologies. Another problem diagnosed by the partnership is the lack or low availability of practical English language learning material for seniors.In order to solve the above problems The partnership decided to set up an international team of experts that will develop innovative training materials based on the latest knowledge and experience in the field of teaching foreign languages. The team will include people with many years of experience in teaching English, working with the elderly, but also specialists in developing teaching methodologies and creating complete training programs. The project therefore concerns the area of ​​non-voactional adult education and responds to the need of raising competences of senior citizens in the field of multilingualism and ICT.The most important project goals are:• To create innovative results of intellectual work dedicated to English language teachers working with seniors;• To raise key competences of seniors in the field of multilingualism (English) and ICT;• To strengthen the potential of partner organizations.Project targets the following groups:• English language teachers working with older people (or intending to work), including teachers from partner organizations with less experience as well as teachers from partnership countries, but not only• Seniors learning English with low language competence and ICT skills;• Teachers - experts: employees or permanent contractors of partner organizations, people with vast expertise in teaching English and working with seniors• Partner organizations• Entities teaching EnglishActivities planned in the project:• Work on results in international interdisciplinary teams of experts, including international project meetings of staff and experts aimed at developing high-quality products which meet the standards set by the Partnership's institutions• Testing the developed methods and tools during international training for English trainers, which will support the transfer of knowledge and give the opportunity to verify the quality of results in practice and to make corrections• Carrying out dissemination workshops for min. 72 of adults (in each country at least 24 people will be covered by the activity)• Further dissemination - reaching interested organizations, institutions and people will increase the chances of widespread use of results.All project activities are designed to fit into the horizontal priority of expanding and developing the competences of educators and other employees supporting adult learners, while striving to raise key ICT competences for seniors. The results of intellectual work developed under the project are:(O1) Ebook - publication in the form of a mini guide for teachers/trainsers, constituting a reliable compendium of knowledge in the field of teaching English in a practical dimension. The material will contain directions for using the method developed under the project using modern technologies.(O2) Thematic modules - 8 practical large thematic modules that respond to the need to learn practical language used in everyday situations. Examples of training modules are: Shopping, Banking, Health Service, Online Forms. The program responds to the need of learning practical language used in everyday situations.(O3) Supplementary materials - two types of supplementary materials for the course: MULTIMEDIA MATERIALS (e.g. quizzes, presentations, interactive exercises, podcasts, tutorials, vocabulary flashcards, fake apps and fake portals, e.g. for ordering food, hotel reservations, restaurant tables , etc. and others) and TEXT MATERIALS in pdf files for printing and distribution to students or download (e.g. worksheets with exercises, vocabulary to consolidate, sets of expressions to be learned, conversation exercises).(O4) An educational platform where materials developed by experts, multimedia and work cards will be implemented. all of this will be presented in the form of a complete course divided into modules in accordance with the assumptions of the training program. An ebook will also be made available on the platform.All of the above mentioned project products will be made available and usable by all interested educational entities conducting language courses for the elderly (including language schools, universities of the 3rd age, NGOs).

The project idea came from the analysis of the personalised learning in the current European environment, and European national policies. Project partners noticed that there was a little focus on the personalisation of learning for adults, especially in informal environments. In view of the situation, the aim of PLGE project was to provide language teachers with a set of innovative tools in an individual platform, along with the skills and knowledge to be able to offer adult learners high quality, personalised learning opportunities in adult, group language courses. The objectives of the project were to:1. Form a holistic and innovative methodology and strategy to personalise for use in adult language learning environments, design and create a series of intellectual outputs.2. Increase the capacity of L2 language teachers [second language teachers] and educational staff to be able to apply the personalisation techniques currently being used and developed in public sector teaching, in adult learning environment.3. Increase the capacity of L2 language teachers to be able to offer high quality learning opportunities.4. Apply the benefits of personalised learning in an innovative way and in a different context: for adult learners, studying in group environments.The partnership consisted of language schools (Eurospeak, FORIUM) and adult education organisations (CWEP, FYG, QMED) also dealing with disadvantaged learners. Each member in the consortium either provides language courses or cooperates with language trainers and in addition, CWEP has IT expertise sufficient for development of digital part of the intellectual outputs. The direct target group of the project were language teachers and indirect target group were language learners, especially disadvantaged. The project directly involved over 2000 participants. The main undertaken activities in the project included work on the main results, meaning that the activities included searching for differentiation methods and techniques, for most frequently used LNA and ILP templates and OERs, work on content, digitalizing the materials and their extensive testing and improving. Important activities included quality assurance and dissemination of the outcomes in order to assure their exploitation also in other EU countries and other fields. The dissemination included Multiplier Events. The results of the project include tangible results which are three main intellectual outputs: IO1: Handbook/Guide on Differentiation (Differentiated Instruction) in L2 Learning Environments – handbook/guide based on the successful use and implementation of differentiation techniques in group learning environments, IO2: Standardised Modular ILP (Individual Learning Plan) Framework for L2 Learning Environments – a framework for designing ILPs based on student/class demographics, interests, initial level of knowledge etc.IO3: Interactive Electronic ILP and e-Learning Resource Platform – an automated type system, through which teachers and students can both log in to see their progression, short-term and long-term goals. It includes Interactive Electronic ILP System and Electronic Resource Library. Besides intellectual outputs, the project created dissemination materials (website, social channels, leaflets, newsletters, articles, presentations) and working materials including plans and very important intangible results in the form of benefits for direct and indirect target groups, participants and participating organisations. Among others, these are: increased capacity of L2 language teachers and educational staff for applying personalisation techniques, increased ability of adult education providers to offer high quality learning opportunities, increased awareness about various differentiation techniques of teachers, learners and stakeholders, and more effective work of teachers and learners as knowing which techniques makes their work more effective, improved awareness of self-study, long-term goal setting skills and ICT skills of learners. The impact of the project exceeded the expectations. It can be seen in partners’ organizations, their staff and learners, L2 language teachers, operators in the field of adult education. The most important is that all who participated in activities or at least heard about its results, have better awareness about the effective ways of teaching/learning the second language and available tools that can help in rising skills. Moreover the usage of the PLGE results itself helps in increasing ICT skills.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, two facts have become evident: there has been a widespread loss of jobs across Europe, and those who are currently without a job are now left with a unique opportunity to upskill themselves to find better employment. According to the University of Oxford, thousands of people have decided to learn or continue learning one of the most marketable skills for employment: foreign language. Many job search sites have also recommended that people not in employment should take the time to improve their foreign language skills to increase their employability, and many are attempting to do so. This is supported by evidence from Google: according to Google trends, between the start of the pandemic and now, Interest in “language learning with YouTube” has risen by 750%“Language learning solutions” by 450%“Best language learning tools” by 300% “Learning language with Netflix” by 250% The trends clearly demonstrate that not only would people like to learn a language online, but they are seeking particular types of tools to support them; tools that are free of charge, easy to use, and engaging. Unfortunately, many of the tools freely available online have not been designed by experts and are of poor quality, but this may not be visible to learners. Hence, learners may spend their time working with resources which are far from optimal and which may even contain erroneous information. On top of that, learners generally lack an understanding of how to structure and manage their learning to maximise learning outcomes. For example, some foreign language learners may see traditional grammar exercises as the most effective way to improve their foreign language skills and concentrate on these at the expense of other types of activities which an foreign language self-directed learning programme should include. The result is that, without the proper resources and guidance, learners may spend their time trying to improve their foreign language skills to no avail. This may, in turn, lead to frustration and low-motivation and can potentially disrupt the learning process. OBJECTIVESThe object of this project is to make it easier for foreign language learners to learn a language online. To this end, it aims to make a selection of high-quality resources freely available online (OERs) and compile them into an website. This will involve the assessment of resources by a team of experts to ensure that all the resources selected meet quality standards. This project also aims to produce guidance addressed to foreign language learners on how to use the OERs on the website for supporting foreign language self-directed learning. This will take the form of an e-course and will seek to ensure that our target groups know how to use the resources available on the website. It is hoped that this will make it easier for foreign language learners to engage in effective ways of learning and to ultimately upgrade their foreign language skills.NEEDSAs explained in the priorities and topics section above, while there there is a vast array of online resources available to independent learners, many of these are of poor quality and learners are generally not well prepared to make an informed choice of the best materials. It was also explained above that while online learning resources abound, there is a dearth of comprehensive resources freely available to language learners to support and guide them in managing their own learning. This project is underpinned by the assumption that learners need support in these areas to help them make the best use of their time. TARGET GROUPOur target group is adult foreign language learners, with a special focus on those from disadvantaged backgrounds.INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTSIO1: Compilation of OERs for learning foreign languages online for self-directed learners, organised by language, CEFR level, and area of language learning (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, reading, writing, listening, and speaking) on a websiteIO2: An e-course on how to learn foreign languages online for self-directed learnersEXPECTED IMPACT- Increased quality of the resources used by independent learners of a foreign language- Improved use of foreign language learners’ time and improved management of their own learning- Better learning outcomes in self-directed learning environments- Improved communication skills of language learners- Better preparation of language learners to meet the requirements of employers, educational institutions, and day-to-day life in settings where the foreign language is spoken