E-LEARNING SOLUTIONS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE

CERTIFICATION IN EU PROFESSIONS

J. Enrique Agudo, Mercedes Rico, Paula Ferreira, Héctor Sánchez and Patricia Edwards

University of Extremadura, Santa Teresa de Jornet, 38, Mérida, Spain

Keywords: e-Learning, Foreign Language, EU Professions, Moodle.

Abstract: Developing international standards of professional competence over the last few decades has become a key

issue for countries worldwide. In this endeavour education is recognized as a crucial element towards

reaching goals. Two major competencies are highlighted by today’s experts for job marketability: An

operational command of 1- foreign languages, and 2- new technologies. Regarding the first context, this

paper addresses the question of practical needs in foreign language competency for selected working

collectives, the business sectors of trade and commerce in this case, and aims to create English courses at

intermediate /upper-intermediate level, namely B1 and B2, two of the competence standards (A1, A2, B1,

B2, C1, C2) established in the Council of Europe to the certification of languages for professional purposes.

With respect to the latter and second cornerstone on which this proposal is based, technological literacy, an

interactive platform for L2 e-learning through Moodle is proposed, as is the development of tools for the

teaching-learning process. The target users of this particular proposal consist of individuals with specific

foreign language learning and technology-based needs at work in the service sectors of sales and

accommodations.

1 INTRODUCTION

The National Catalogue for professional

qualifications (updated in 2008 and available at

http://www.mepsyd.es/educa/incual/pdf/CNCP_03_

08_esp_ing.pdf ) is an instrument of Spain’s

National System for Qualifications and Vocational

Education and Training (VET) which classifies job

expertise according to the competence considered

appropriate for functional occupational performance.

The National Catalogue consists of a series of

requisite qualities of the work force, arranged in 26

professional families, and at 5 levels of mastery,

taking into account pre-established EU criteria.

These 5 levels are based on the professional abilities

required for each productive activity as rated by

criteria such as knowledge, initiative, autonomy,

responsibility and complexity, among others,

necessary for the accomplishment of tasks in the

workplace.

The new European classification of occupations,

established at the Lisbon Conference (2000) and

available at

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/lis1_es.htm,

are defined as a collection of skills required to

develop an active participation in the knowledge

society and in today’s economy, on the job market

and at work, in real life as well as in virtual contexts,

due to the emerging mobility of persons throughout

the European Union. The lack or inadequacy of the

aforementioned skills, especially ICTs and foreign

languages, is considered a clear motive leading to

maintaining higher levels of unemployment in

disadvantaged geographical regions, particular

business sectors, and underprivileged social groups.

2 LANGUAGE @T WORK

A great deal of time and effort has been spent on

promoting European uniformity in terms of the

rights and responsibilities of its citizens. In linguistic

terms, commitments have been dedicated mainly to

the realm of formal education (Phillipson, 2003),

paying little or no attention to the formative

capacities required of productive, professional and

occupational sectors. However, this situation is

rapidly changing thanks to the linguistic policies

derived from the Council of Europe and the

485

Enrique Agudo J., Rico M., Ferreira P., Sánchez H. and Edwards P. (2010).

E-LEARNING SOLUTIONS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE CERTIFICATION IN EU PROFESSIONS.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 485-488

DOI: 10.5220/0002860004850488

 SciTePress

achievements of the national and regional boards of

education in member States, elaborated in the case

of Spain, by the National Institute of Professional

Qualifications (Instituto Nacional de las

Cualificaciones Profesionales - INCUAL):

http://www.mec.es/educa/incual/ice_catalogoWeb.ht

ml.

Thus, the homogeneity of linguistic competence

as has become as of late a major subject addressed

by governments of the 27 countries which compose

the European Union. These countries have been

diligently working to establish common guidelines

devoted to the learning and teaching of foreign

languages within European contexts. The results of

their efforts have been compiled in the Common

European Framework of Languages. This document,

presented in 2001, has laid the foundations for

linguistic certification and equivalency levels

through the creation of language programs and

syllabi, guidelines and codes, comprehensive exams,

international texts, work books, learning material,

realia, joint projects and mobility, just to mention a

few.

Furthermore, the Council of Europe has taken

initiative actions in terms of language teaching and

learning by enabling the creation of a major Project

aimed at establishing the basis set down in the

Common European Framework of Languages

through the European Language Portfolio, available

at: http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio/. It is in this

context, and with the express purpose of creating a

flexible job market all over Europe, that the

elaboration of linguistic certification for

occupational purposes emerges. The main objectives

of languages for specific purposes are to qualify

individuals to function correctly in specific

communicative situations by means of adequately

applying the target foreign language and to obtain

internationally recognized certification in foreign

languages as applied to the world of work.

Therefore, the objectives of our proposal of

language teaching for professional purposes lies in

equipping future professional users with specific

linguistic capacity, both in terms of contents and in

terms of learning methodologies. The course can be

useful for beginners in order to reach required levels,

or for those with some degree of acquisition to

revise the contents previously learned. In addition,

the course is dedicated to the concept of life-long

learning. All of the cases can result in certification

and recognition of the linguistic skills in terms of

particular work competencies. From 2004 onwards,

several strategic plans have been designed and

executed in order to give coherence to the

certification and homogeneity policy of languages

for professional purposes. Among the main

guidelines (Council of Europe, 2001) are the

establishment of six competency levels (A1, A2, B1,

B2, C1, C2) and the definition of the abilities which

should be developed in each of them

(http://www.linguanet-europa.org/pdfs/global-scale-

grid-en.pdf )

3 e-LEARNING: LINGUISTIC

EDUCATION THROUGH ICTS

Life-long learning, the development of European

mobility policies of equal opportunity, and the

capacity to reach all citizens beyond national

borders, finds in technology a new medium to

develop the personal, cultural and professional skills

of all. It is for this reason that our proposal of

linguistic certification, developed in the first

objective, will be carried out through multimedia

tools and online learning.

3.1 Objective 1 - Linguistic Objectives

The achievement of linguistic educational needs in

professional contexts is mostly harboured in the

service sector, specifically in commercial,

developmental and tourist management activities. In

the case in point, we have designed English for

occupational purposes courses based on the national

guidelines of the National Institute of Qualifications

(INCUAL), the technical instrument which supports

the Spanish General Council of Vocational

Education and Training in (for further information,

click on the following site:

http://www.mepsyd.es/educa/incual/ice_incual_ing.h

tml.

Related to the National Catalogue of Professions,

various levels of foreign language command, from

the Basic A1 to the Advanced C2, are established.

Our study is focused on some of the occupations

which, within the general area of Trade & Marketing

and according to the Certification Standards,

demand a linguistic competence level of the

independent user (levels B1 and B2, intermediate

and upper-intermediate respectively) and whose

main features are summarized in the table 1.

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486

Table 1: Description of Customer Service and Attention course.

Course Title: Customer Service and Attention

(http://www.mepsyd.es/educa/incual/pdf/BDC/COM087_3.pdf)

Linguistic Level: B2 (Upper Intermediate)

General Area: Trade and Marketing

Numbers of

Formative Modules:

Client attention and support (150 h)

Consumer complaints management (150 h)

Consume information system organization (180 h)

Professional English for commercial activities (90 h)

General Description of

Linguistic content:

Can communicate in commercial activities by using English in an independent user level.

Can communicate with clients by using English. Is able to make sales of goods and services.

Can analyze basic commercial documents in English. Can fill in complaint forms in

English. Is able to solve English-speaking customers’ complaints. Can establish

sociolinguistic relevant interaction with customers/consumers.

3.2 Objective 2 - Technological

Objectives

One of the principal agents of the entire online

formative process is the implementation of

technology. Technological skill functions as a

medium for information transmission (content) and

for communication between participants. Moodle

(Modular Object Oriented Distance Learning

Environment), a platform combining an array of

management tools, enables pedagogical

communication between the participants of the

teaching/learning process in an e-learning or b-

learning format (Adell et al., 2004) (Cole & Foster,

2007) (Rice, 2006)(Rice, 2007) (Gómez et al.,

2009). The purposes pursued in terms of technology

are: (1) to create a platform for e-learning centred

management, i.e. language learning through Moodle,

and; (2) to develop tools and learning objects to

ensure linguistic acquisition, and consequently,

certification for specific professional sectors.

3.2.1 Objective 2.1 - Creation of a Platform

for e-Learning Centered Management

Although Moodle offers a complete Web learning

environment, a tool will be needed to manage

simultaneously Moodle installations which share

content and courses. Traditionally, sharing courses

involved creating course backups and running a

downloading and restoration process onto the new

website, a complicated procedure which may pose

obstacles in terms of efficiency when managing

several educational sites and course scores at the

same time.

Thus, in our system, www.aulasinteractivas.es (a

website to provide on-line learning platforms), we

require independent platforms to cope with the

teaching/learning needs of educational institutions

(e.g. vocational training centers, academies, schools,

business, etc...). The common core of some of the

courses and the simultaneous teaching-learning

demands on teachers and participants calls for the

need to share content between them efficiently.

Consequently, our objective is focused on

developing all the necessary tools to handle backups,

sharing courses and content, and carrying out

updates when running different platforms

simultaneously. Our system, built in PHP, will

provide a set of tools to create, delete and update any

Moodle platform installed in our server, making it

possible to change general aspects such as name,

owner data, themes, modules, etc., and to create

personalized learning platforms adapted to the needs

of different educational centers.

Thus, the design of the multi-purpose platform

will facilitate the distribution of material between

different Moodle installations with ease by enabling

the selection of the available courses and

transferring them to other platforms.

The various components of our multi-platform

system are illustrated in Figure 1.

Main

Moodle

All

Available Courses

Course 1

Course 2

Course 3

...

Basic

Moodle

No courses

Moodle

Educational center 1

Create

Update

Add Courses

Moodle

Educational center 2

Moodle

Educational center 3

Course 1

Course 3

Course 2

Figure 1: Learning platforms management system.

As observed, there are two main Moodle

installations: the Basic Moodle platform, a non-

course installation which is used to create new

courses and update the Main Moodle, and the Main

Moodle, a system used to store all the available

courses in order to update the platform in other

E-LEARNING SOLUTIONS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE CERTIFICATION IN EU PROFESSIONS

487

specific installations and to add courses to each

additional system.

On the same token, visual information is one of

the most important aspects in the design of our

multi-platform system. Thus, building an effective e-

learning space means that every piece (bars,

graphics, colours, hyperlinks, pictures, icons,

resources, etc.) looks like a sign or symbol

integrated within a global piece of communication.

3.2.2 Objective 2.2 - Development of Tools

for the Acquisition of Communicative

L2 Skills

According to our formative needs in foreign

language competency (independent user – B1 &B2)

identified for the selected working fields, research is

currently in progress on tailoring the installation,

enhancement and development of specific learning

objects and tools. Due to the singular characteristics

inherent in language acquisition, our platform must

contain customized features indicative of an

adequate e-learning environment.

Oral

Comprehension

Oral

Production

Oral

Interaction

Composition

Examination

Collaborative

Tools

On-line

Language

Learning

Figure 2: Main tools for on-line language learning.

In the pursuit of effective on-line language learning,

we need oral and collaborative tools that facilitate

communication between our platform users (Curado

& Agudo, 2009). In this sense, specific modules

have been installed in our courses to practice and

improve productive and collaborative abilities, being

purposely divided, as seen in figure 2), into oral

comprehension, oral production, oral interaction,

composition examination and collaborative tools.

Moreover, we are currently developing new

modules and services to improve our platform

potential for L2 learning, namely, with the

incorporation of a voice recognition module, writing

online assessment, and an online presentation

system.

4 FINAL DISCUSSION

E-learning solutions for the professional sectors in

need of a certain degree of foreign language

competence and technological know-how can be

provided with the proper content and applied

methodology. It seems logical to assume that the

proposal herein presented is a viable alternative to

reaching literacy goals regarding both of the

required skills, objectives in which the development

and implementation of technology play a major role.

The increasing need for e-learning solutions has

made it advisable to develop management tools

which enable us to run different platforms

simultaneously. Also, we need special tools to

achieve effective on-line language learning, mainly

communication, multimedia and collaborative tools

on which we are currently working to improve our

system. In this sense, we are developing a complete

platform with all the tools that any teacher / student

can use in the e-learning process, to design a

medium for information transmission and

communication between participants.

REFERENCES

Cole , Jason & Foster, Helen , 2007. Using Moodle:

Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course

Management System. O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2 edition.

Council of Europe, 2001.Common European Framework

of Reference for Languages. Cambridge University

Press.

Curado, Alejandro & Agudo, J. Enrique, 2009. Oral

Development for LSP via Open Source Tools, Scripta

Manent, 4(2) 29-40.

Gómez, I., Hernández, E. & Rico, M., 2009. Moodle en la

enseñanza presencial y mixta del inglés en contextos

universitarios. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a

Distancia, vol. 12 nº 1, 169-193.

Phillipson, R, 2003. English-only Europe?: challenging

language policy. London: Routledge.

Rice, William , 2006. Moodle E-Learning Course

Development: A complete guide to successful learning

using Moodle. Packt Publishing.

Rice, William, 2007. Moodle Teaching Techniques:

Creative Ways to Use Moodle for Constructing Online

Learning Solutions. Packt Publishing (September 20,

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