Objectives of the project: 1. transfer of knowledge, exchange of experience and good practices in: • the effective ways of motivating adults for learning process • promotion of lifelong learning among adults • adult education systems • valuation criteria for assessing and improving the training system quality (adults education) • improving the attractiveness of adult education • developing the educational/training programs for adult learners with the use of ICT • adjusting directions of further education/training programs to the needs of adults 2. increase of administration capacity of organizations offering the lifelong education possibilities 3. promotion of quality improvement and innovation in systems, institutions and practices in the field of adult education and training 4. professional development of adult educators, including deepening their knowledge, improving teaching skills, performing tasks and teaching methods and techniques, 5. increase the activity of adults in the membership in an European society /to consider/ 6. personal development of participants 7. increase of adaptability and intercultural skills of participants 8. improvement of language competences of participants 9. establishment of international contacts 10. activation of cooperation between organizations or institutions of adult education and training in Europe Participants / Target group • staff active in education and training • experts, specialists, professionals • practitioners • adult learners Methods of work: a) exchange of experience and good practice b) presentations c) publication d) communication through social media, website e) workshops and seminars with the theme of the project f) discussions g) study visits Main results of the project: a) Tangible results: • project website • facebook profile • publication - summary of used methods and good practises in the field of the effective ways of motivating adults for learning process, promotion of lifelong learning among adults, • a list of tools for acquiring and forecasting educational needs of adults • minutes of meetings b) Intangible results: • higher attractiveness of adult education • professional development of educators, higher educators’ competences, • personal development of participants *improved language competences of participants *the increase of adaptability *development of intercultural skills of participants *improved personal and social competences • cooperation network • experience in project implementation

"The increasing presence of immigrants coming from extremely different contexts inevitably teaching professionals - and especially the ones operating in the linguistic and communicative areas - in the predisposition of ""emergency-response"" tools. In many cases, the majority of learning users from adult education providers are immigrants.Identifying didactic language methodologies, immediately applicable at the stage of reception of adult newly-comers/immigrants, is a priority for all institutions applying for the proposed partnership. The overcoming of the above mentioned ""didactic emergency"" can be made possible by the spread and the exchange of experiences, related methodologies and experimented practices in the different countries and teaching/learning contexts involved in project. Therefore, our objectives are:- Comparison of literacy systems used by involved partners;- Improvement in effectiveness of actions carried out by partner institutions through identification of new teaching strategies which may help learners - newly settled immigrants - acquire LSP (languages for specific/special purposes) and relational competencies applicable on an everyday basis to their new contexts of residence;- Comparison and exchange/sharing good practices among the partners in relation to:""welcoming"" modalities for learnerstesting of their language skillsidentification of their communicative and sociocultural needs- Development of the network among involved partners in order to increase opportunities for expertise and didactic tools sharing within the same institutions;- Dissemination of produced materials by the means of a web platform to the wide audience within and outside of EU;- Production of multimedia (such as video, website and etc) which will simulate various scenarios of immigrant-life and -work in public offices, places of work, leisure environments and etc.)- Collection and presentation of the most significant experiences on paper supports.Coherently, the mission of the proposed project and partnership consists in carrying out both a ""research-while-training"" stage and a subsequent practical application of didactic options previously experimented among various partners. We strongly believe that this ""two-side"" articulation (training/communication) will contribute to the ""surplus value"" of the proposed project.Project activities will favour the development of innovative practices in the Adult Education and their transfer from one partner to another. They will increase knowledge in knowing WHAT, WHEN, HOW to EVALUATE the outcomes of knowledge and skills gained during the process of this partnership. As well, it is expected that all previously described impacts may create feedback effects from the one level to the other and vice versa, which may create the multiplier effect.The long-term sustainability of this project will be favoured by the logic of mutual interest for all involved partners organizations. The fact that the partners previously managed other projects within European cooperation framework will created a real dynamic in the proposed partnership. As well, the project promotion will not stop at the end of it, due to possibility of new correlated projects between consortium members in the near future."

Based on the Lisbon Recognition Convention (1997), and following the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report (2015-2016), the Paris Declaration (2016) and the Council of Europe’s Action Plan on Building Inclusive Societies (2016-2019), the response to the refugees’ crisis was planned to be implemented based on 3 main pillars; the first and most important was the pillar of Education which stresses that focus should be given on (1) Language skills as an engine for integration, (2) Recognizing qualifications held by migrants and refugees, (3) Access to education for migrant and refugee children and young people. Taking all this under account, project “WELKOM – Recognition of Qualifications held by Refugees” was developed as an answer to the growing needs for social, economic and educational integration of the refugees fleeing to the European countries during the last few years, who are estimated to more than 4 million (registered) refugees from Syria alone, with 400.000 of them in the age group of 18-24 (5% with access to higher education) and 2 million in the age group of 24 to 40 (40% with University education).In this regard, the main objective of “WELKOM” has been to support refugees who hold skills and qualifications from their countries of origin, as well as to empower institutions that work with refugees’ education and recognition, in order to help them integrate into the host countries’ labour market, namely in Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Italy and Sweden. The project included primary research activities, and expert inputs received through targeted questionnaires, all of which led us to develop a roadmap of tools and methodologies for the recognition of the qualifications held by refugees, and to suggest an alignment of education systems and processes in and outside the EU. Furthermore, career guidance workshops with the direct participation of 116 refugees were organized, 5000 innovative brochures with external to the project information were printed and disseminated to the target groups, while the “WELKOM” Network was established with 28 relevant to the project’s cause organization from across Europe, in order to sustain, use and lobby for the project’s results going forward.Therefore, the results of “WELKOM” have been a helpful step and contribute to the development of educational plans and national strategies in the field of refugees’ recognition of qualifications, as well as to their much needed language learning, leading to their further social integration through inclusion in work and education. “WELKOM” has also achieved to add value to teachers’, trainers’ and educators’ available material, as well as to strengthen the partners’ capacity to plan and implement such activities in the present and in the future.

Europe requires its educators to be culturally and intellectually equipped in appropriate ways for both their present and their future. Only thus will they be able to lead meaningful and satisfying lives personally, socially, professionally and collectively. Adult education Institutions play a major role in developing appropriate strategies for adult learners and preparing their educators in a life long learning perspective, for a productive career. However, adult learning is the weakest link in developing Lifelong Learning towards interpersonal skills development among adult educators and learners, which impedes educators’ expected productive career due to a lack of a set of skills toward their social and professional development. See https://bit.ly/2XEMpRP Further, even though the importance of adult educators competences is at some extend understood, an understanding of the concept alone is insufficient. The true importance lies in the implications a competences-based approach has on adults teaching, training and learning: appropriate methods for teaching and training, participatory learning activities as well as effective learning and performance assessment methods to foster the skills in terms of knowledge, understanding and attitudes. An approach which requires educators to have a high level of interpersonal skills to meet the needs of learners, regardless of their backgrounds or their learning and performance abilities. See https://doi.org/10.7227/JACE.13.2.9 In this regards, the project seeks to address the challenges to the lack or low-level of interpersonal skills among adult educators by fostering their empowerment through training and teaching activities based on practical and dynamic approaches: participatory learning methods as means for capacity strengthening and interpersonal skills development. The project overall goal is to strengthen the capacity of adult educators in face-to-face training-teaching process, supplemented with mentorship components to facilitate adult learners empowerment. Thus, the project overall objective is to foster interpersonal skills development among adult educators by:(1). producing a handbook based on results of national open-ended consultations on the challenges to interpersonal skills development among adult educators;(2). producing a guide to Interpersonal Skills Development and Interpersonal Skills Self-Assessment in adult education;(3). developing training and mentorship material for educators as means to facilitate adult learners Interpersonal Skills Development and Self-Assessment;(4). creating a guide to Interpersonal Skills Awareness-raising through advocacy campaigns and blogging.The partners are invited to develop and share mechanisms to foster interpersonal skills development within adult education and further, promote a sense of belonging for adult learners who are at high risk of exclusion, such as women, refugees and minority groups by creating opportunities for educator to practice their competences in an inclusive learning environment. Moreover, provide the opportunities for practice outside partner institutions to further test, pilot, disseminate and exploit results through practical classes, lecture sessions, seminars, or field training programmes.

This Project results from our need as teachers of adult language learners to satisfy the needs of a mixed-ability language class, helping students improve their achievement, thus reducing disparities in learning outcomes. Our Team embodies the aim that permeates the Project, that is, diversity, because we are a diverse group (language schools, teacher training centres, and NGOs) which, at the same time, share the same necessities and a common goal: to help adult students develop their competence in foreign languages as a way to open doors to employment, training and mobility opportunities in a globalised and especially ever competitive world. We want to work with diversity in a way that can serve any educator (and any student) anywhere in any context. How are we doing this? by standardizing student learning models, methodology approaches, and evaluation criteria. These learning models will be approached from an analytical perspective analyzing aspects like learning styles, learning paces and personality traits, but also from a holistic perspective taking into account aspects like age, socio-cultural and educational background and how their reality as a whole can affect their learning process. We want to create a kind of standard and, at the same time, flexible approach from which we can personalize student profiles attending to their individual needs, making them conscious of what type of learner they are. The activities of the Project have been organised into two different stages: 1. Analysis and Training - Good practice exchange workshop, not only examples of good practice to attend diversity in the classroom, but also of any other aspect regarding the organisation and management of centres, considering the hetereogeneity of our association. - A training activity that will provide the theoretical framework from which we can standardize learning models, tools for their identification and those of self-assessment and materials to be implemented in the classroom. - Elaboration and asessment of those tools and materials that will be used in class during the implementation stage. 2. Implementation, Assessment and Dissemination: - Case studies as a didactic technique: teachers will select a practice group and a control group, which will serve as a comparison group when results are assessed. Those results will also be included in a comparative research study. - Progress analysis and methodology comparison: with the objective to learn how the work is adapted to the different realities and situations experienced in the different establishments. - Assessment of results, which must be in line with the indicators of achievement applied to objectives and results of the project as a whole. - Dissemination activities: a Manual for teachers, a comparative study research, and the creation of a website and mobile app containing information about the project, its objectives and results and from the Manual can be downloaded. The methodology applied is characterized by a respect towards diversity, and values the aspects and experience of such an heterogeneous team as ours and the enrichment that it brings to the Project. In that sense, we also include the case study method to analyze diversity which, by nature, can present different variables and is subjected to change depending on the context it is found in. The results, benefits and the impact expected is looked at from two different perspectives: Teachers being the target group: - Gain expertise to identify a wide range of profiles of adult language learners and develop skills to design effective pedagogical activities and methodology approaches responding to the diverse needs of students. - Develop inter-disciplinary language training skills for all adult learning context and to encourage learners' critical thinking and self-assessment. -Develop transferable and generalizable pedagogical models that can be applied at transnational level. Students, being the beneficiaries of our work: - Experience the improvement of linguistic and communicative competence of students in a foreign language, according to the level they are in, and learn how to take responsibility of their own learning process, favouring independence, and also how they learn best based on an awareness of their abilities, strengths and weakenesses, thus fostering self-confidence.