Virtex adaptation for Hungary

2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Project Information Title: Virtex adaptation for Hungary Project Number: 2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052 Year: 2010 Project Type: Transfer of Innovation Status: completed Country: HU-Hungary Marketing Text: VIRTEX is a an interactive English language teaching curriculum invented specially to catering vocational school students. The students can learn English with the help of interactive video situations, which can meet most of the work in the hospitality industry: for example hotel Check-In/Check-Out, handling complaints, providing information, taking orders restaurant etc. In addition, the curriculum contains the presentation of the most popular Hungarian dishes and drinks. The videos and interactive elements include tasks that will help improve the skills and the self-test exercises. Summary: The results of the Hungarian language education are among the worst in the European Union. The main problem is that the communication skills are very poor. The requirements at exams focus on theories and linguistics but not on communication. There are numerous surveys on measuring the communication skills. An Eurobarometer survey shows that Hungary is the worst in this field. The coordinator school has made similar surveys among the schools and among the hotels that are the most significant employers of the school leavers. These surveys show an even worse situation. For this reason we decided to find a good practice that could help improve the students’ skills. We have looked for good practices among the countries where the results are good. We found the VIRTEX project that perfectly fits our practice. The aims and objectives of the project are the following: - To improve the level of the students’ communicational and verbal skills using the VIRTEX methodology - To localize the material to better suit the Hungarian cultural environment and the law of education - To translate the main parts of the material for the adaptation - To promote the results and start market-based language courses for the workers in the Hungarian hospitality sector improving their verbal and communicational skills and at the same time generating definite revenue The representatives of the hotels we are in contact with suggested finding a way to improve the skills regarding foreign languages. Through this channel we have met the VIRTEX project and the participants of its initial development. We decided to transfer VIRTEX to our school in Hungary. We contacted the original developers and finally we organized a team that is capable to execute the transfer successfully. All participants have their definite roles as follows: P2 (Dutch partner): The leader and owner of this company was the project manager of VIRTEX project. Colorez participated in a project where the consortium transferred VIRTEX to other countries. They will assure the quality and represent the principles of the methodology. P1 (Estonian partner): They participated in the VIRTEX project and they already transferred it to Estonia. They will assure that all necessary aspects will be considered during the transfer. P3 (Portuguese partner): Very experienced organization in intercultural projects, the representative is a native English linguist who is in very good working relation with all participants. P4 (Corinthia Hotel): The original initiators of the project and they will express the needs of the market. They are non-eligible partners so they will fund all of their costs.

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Project Information We are going to produce the following outcomes: - Fully useable e-learning material - Fully detailed course with all the necessary course materials - An online community around the project to aid the further transfers The impact envisaged is to increase our students’ verbal and communicational skills at least by 40% Description: Results of several surveys, articles and interviews show that the foreign language and communication knowledge and skills are generally not sufficient for efficient communication among people within Europe. In the attachment we included the results of a Eurobarometer survey that supports this statement. Moreover, it is obvious from the data that Hungarian’s achievements are especially low in this respect among the EU member countries. On the initiative of our partner hotels, and with the participation of our partner institutions, we carried out a survey in summer 2009 to find out the level of the communicative skills of our school leavers in the field of the knowledge and use of foreign languages. The results of our research showed an even more sinister picture than the Eurobarometer data. This, unfortunately was underpinned by our own experiences with the school population, proved by the staggeringly low figures of achievement at the theoretical vocational exam (see attachments) . Our figures point at a deep divide between the students’ theoretical knowledge and practical skills, where the extremely low ‘theoretical’ results originate mostly from the lack of foreign language knowledge and skills. Our Hotel partners have urged us, to raise the level of English instruction and communicative skills training. The experts also recommended that we should follow the best practices in the ‘Old Europe’. Through them, and our own research, we learned that the Hungarian situation is by far not unique, and that Estonians, Bulgarians, Slovaks and many othe nationalities struggle with the same problems. This is why we consider it very promising to adapt the original Dutch-based, and transnational project with the help of our Estonian partners, and under the scrutiny of the Dutch partner, coordinator of the VIRTEX project, as well as the adaptation of the project for European teacher education.

Themes: *** Labor market *** Intercultural learning *** Sustainability *** Lifelong learning *** Language training *** Initial training ** Vocational guidance Sectors: *** Accommodation and Food Service Activities *** Education Product Types: material for open learning Film teaching material program or curricula website Product information: The material to be transferred has been developed for specific linguistic and cultural situations and is based on e-learning elements. The main parts are videos, focused and effective interactive elements, well designed didactic texts and situational games. All of these are designed for individual learning but led by tutor both professional and lingual teachers. The didactical way was designed directly on the experiment that people can learn on the easiest way if they are doing what they like most. Recently the community based online activities are the most preferred platforms people like spend their spare time. The didactic way utilizes the most important elements of the behavior of an “interneting” person. Projecthomepage: www.virtex.info.hu

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Project Contractor Name: City: Country/Region: Country: Organization Type: Homepage:

KELTA Vocational Secondary School for Hotel and Catering Budapest Közép-Magyarország HU-Hungary others http://www.keltakht.hu/

Contact Person Name:

Attila Féderer

Address:

Zipernowsky street 4

City: Country:

Budapest HU-Hungary

Telephone:

+3612431333

Fax:

+3612431333

E-mail: Homepage:

[email protected]

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Coordinator Name: City: Country/Region: Country: Organization Type: Homepage:

KELTA Vocational Secondary School for Hotel and Catering Budapest Közép-Magyarország HU-Hungary others http://www.keltakht.hu/

Contact Person Name:

Attila Féderer

Address:

Zipernowsky street 4

City: Country:

Budapest HU-Hungary

Telephone:

+3612431333

Fax:

+3612431333

E-mail: Homepage:

[email protected]

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Partner Partner 1 Name: City: Country/Region: Country: Organization Type: Homepage:

ROYAL CORINTHIA HOTEL BUDAPEST Budapest Közép-Magyarország HU-Hungary others http://www.corinthiahotels.com/

Partner 2 Name: City: Country/Region: Country: Organization Type: Homepage:

Schieszl Restaurant Budakalász Közép-Magyarország HU-Hungary SME - small and medium-sized enterprise (up to 250 employees) http://schieszl.hu

Partner 3 Name: City: Country/Region: Country: Organization Type: Homepage:

Colorez Vof Amsterdam Noord-Holland NL-Netherlands others http://www.colorez.nl

Partner 4 Name: City: Country/Region: Country: Organization Type: Homepage:

University of Lisbon, faculty of letters Lisboa Lisboa PT-Portugal university/Fachhochschule/academy http://www.fl.ul.pt/

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Partner Partner 5 Name:

Kuressaare Regional Training Centre (RTC)

City: Country/Region:

Kuressaare Eesti

Country:

EE-Estonia

Organization Type: Homepage:

continuing training institution http://www.ametikool.ee

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Project Files 2nd partnermeeting Kuressaare.doc http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/2nd%20partnermeeting%20Kuressaare.doc

3rd partnermeeting Lisbon.docx http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/3rd%20partnermeeting%20Lisbon.docx

Field visit in Kuressare.docx http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/Field%20visit%20in%20Kuressare.docx

flyer02.jpg http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/flyer02.jpg

Flyer 03.jpg http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/Flyer%2003.jpg

flyer 04.jpg http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/flyer%2004.jpg

flyer 05.jpg http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/flyer%2005.jpg

Kickoff meeting.doc http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/Kickoff%20meeting.doc

Monitoring visit.docx http://www.adam-europe.eu/prj/7824/prj/Monitoring%20visit.docx

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Products 1

The transferred learning material

2

Training material for the teachers

3

Course plan for the teachers

4

Didactical handbook

5

Minutes and reports of monitoring activities

6

Survey tests "before - after"

7

Corrected curriculum and methodological handbook for teachers

8

Quality management handbook

9

Evaluation documentation of the complete monitoring activities

10

Written material for the conferences and workshops like flyers, information handbooks

11

Published articles in the most significant professional periods

12

Online marketing materials, banners

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'The transferred learning material' Title: The transferred learning material Product Type: teaching material Marketing Text: Description: This result is the method to achieve the project objective. Target group: students, teachers and employees in catering industry Result: This is an e-learning material for students in catering industry. It consists of 43 lessons in 9 units. It contains 154 videos, 62 ICT elements and about 400 exercises on 290 pages. Area of application: Catering education Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=1

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Training material for the teachers' Title: Training material for the teachers Product Type: teaching material Marketing Text: Description: This is the support material for the teachers. The Teacher’s Book includes: • Introduction • Description of the material • Teaching notes and answer key for the exercises • Transcripts of audio-visual materials • The Teacher’s book also offers optional extra practice with videos, extra exercises and the extention of the material covered in each unit. Target group: teachers Result: We call this material: Student's book. The Student’s Book comprises nine main units that contain the most important themes, regarding the syllabus of the ministry of Education, in foodservice industry. Each unit is clearly organised and follows the same pattern and consists of 2-8 lessons. A time guide is given for each lesson, (each lesson is 30-40 minutes long) but the actual length will vary depending on the students knowledge, learning skills and attitude and if the material is used during lessons much depends on the teacher’s teaching style and on factors as how much the teacher asks the learners to speak and of course much depends on the student’s pace and attitude. The first part of each unit has a brief introduction to the particular theme. Then there are related videos. Each video is followed by exercises, word puzzles, word searches, matching games, reading comprehensions, crosswords, which incorporate the target vocabulary and expressions covered in the unit. Each lesson ends with a mini test and each unit ends with End Unit Tests. Area of application: Catering education Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=2

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Course plan for the teachers' Title: Course plan for the teachers Product Type: teaching material Marketing Text: Description: This product helps the teachers to split the curricula week by week. Target group: teachers Result: This is a one year (36 weeks) plan for the teachers with the monthly and weekly schedule of the topics. Area of application: Catering education Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=3

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Didactical handbook' Title: Didactical handbook Product Type: teaching material Marketing Text: Description: This handbook contains didactic of e-learning. Target group: teachers Result: This is a support material for the teachers, it helps to understand basic principles of e-learning and contains the types of the exercises of the transferred material. Area of application: Catering education Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=4

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Minutes and reports of monitoring activities' Title: Minutes and reports of monitoring activities Product Type: others Marketing Text: Description: The minutes help partners to remember the activities during the meetings and as the tasks are recorded they reminds them for their future tasks. Target group: all participants Result: These documents contains the minutes and agenda of the meetings and the evaluation report of the visited lessons. (see attached files) Area of application: Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=5

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Survey tests "before - after"' Title: Survey tests "before - after" Product Type: others Marketing Text: Description: These tests are parts of the evaluation. We wanted to know if the VIRTEX methodology were more effective and useful than the "original". Target group: students Result: These are tests written by sudents. They wrote one test in the beginning of the testing phase ("before"-test). After the test we splitted the classes into two parts randomly. One of them was learning with the "original" method, and the other part with the VIRTEX material. After the testing phase they wrote again a test ("after"-test). The results clearly show that the methodology used by Virtex is more effective than the "original" methodology. According to the final evaluation of the tests the communication and language skills of the students learning with Virtex were 50% better. In contrast with the other group where the results showed about 30% increase.

Area of application: Catering education Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=6

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Corrected curriculum and methodological handbook for teachers' Title: Corrected curriculum and methodological handbook for teachers Product Type: teaching material Marketing Text: Description: The first prepared integrated curriculum proved to be applicable therefore there was no need to make corrections. Target group: teachers Result: Area of application: Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=7

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Quality management handbook' Title: Quality management handbook Product Type: others Marketing Text: Description: This handbook contains the questionarries about the work. Target group: all participants Result: Area of application: Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=8

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Evaluation documentation of the complete monitoring activities' Title: Evaluation documentation of the complete monitoring activities Product Type: Marketing Text: Description: This is a report about the quality assurance and the evaluation. Target group: all participants Result: Quality assurance and Evaluation is a crucial process that helps partners to make the most out of the project activities, both during and after the funding period. For this reason, evaluation involves learning from experience. It requires the partners to reflect, understand, adapt and make changes in order to meet the project aims and improve their performance. In the end, evaluation makes an assessment of the project success. It helps partners to understand how and why outputs and outcomes have been achieved and to identify any weaknesses or lessons to be learned for future projects as well as it enables the partnership to spotlight the developed good practices in national and European level.

Area of application: Homepage: Product Languages: English

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=9

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Written material for the conferences and workshops like flyers, information handbooks' Title: Written material for the conferences and workshops like flyers, information handbooks Product Type: others Marketing Text: Description: We made some flyers, information leaflets and presentations. Target group: schools, teachers, employees, students and families Result: By promoting the material through different channels it became more well-known, and we got some new ideas from the feedbacks. Our aim was to make it widespread among students and teachers.(see attached files) Area of application: Catering industry Homepage: Product Languages: Hungarian

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=10

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Published articles in the most significant professional periods' Title: Published articles in the most significant professional periods Product Type: others Marketing Text: Description: These articles help us to make the project widespread. Target group: students, teachers, employees and catering institutions. Result: We have published two articles in the local newspaper ("Óbuda Újság") and we are going to publish two or three other articles in december in the significant monthly vocational printed and online newspapers ("EuGenius Szaktudósító", "Modern Iskola", "Trade Magazin") Area of application: Catering industry Homepage: Product Languages: Hungarian

http://www.adam-europe.eu/adam/project/view.htm?prj=7824&prd=11

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Product 'Online marketing materials, banners' Title: Online marketing materials, banners Product Type: others Marketing Text: Description: These social portals helped us to make the project widespread. Target group: students, teachers, employees and catering institutions. Result: We utilized the most popular social media portals Facebook and LinkedIn creating our own clubs and sub-communities. We promoted the project through videos, pictures and flyers. Area of application: Vocational institutions, Public portals, social media Homepage: Product Languages: Hungarian

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Events Virtex conference Date Description

28.08.2012 A conference about VIRTEX2HU to Hungarian VET specialists

Target audience Hungarian VET specialists Public

Event is open to the public

Contact Information Time and place

28.08.2012. Budapest, Hungary

Monitoring visit Date Description

25.03.2012 - QUALITY MANAGEMENT: THE PARTICIPANTS FILL THE SECOND QUESTIONNAIRE - THE PARTICIPANTS DISCUSS THE RULES AND DEADLINES OF FINANCIAL SETTLEMENT - VIRTEX LESSON IN THE KITCHEN AND IN THE RESTAURANT - VIRTEX CLASS: UNIT 4 LESSON 2 PAYING - VIRTEX CLASS: UNIT 6 LESSON 4 OTHER BEVERAGES - VIRTEX IN PRACTICE IN THE RESTAURANT - VIRTEX IN PRACTICE IN THE KITCHEN - DISCUSSING THE FINAL REPORT

Target audience All participants Public

Closed event

Contact Information Time and place

2012.03.25-30. Budapest, Hungary

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Events 3rd partner meeting Date Description

15.10.2011 - THE PARTICIPANTS DISCUSSED THE NEW RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE TENDER - KADRI RIIM PRESENTED THE VIDEOS MADE BY ESTONIAN PARTNERS WHICH CAN BE SEEN ON THE WEBSITE - ATTILA FÉDERER PRESENTED THE VIDEOS MADE BY THE HUNGARIAN PARTNERS - THE TEAM VISITED CORINTHIA LISBON HOTEL, WHERE SOME PORTUGESE DISHES’ PREPARATION WERE SHOT ON VIDEO - A VIRTEX TEST LESSON WAS HELD FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENT GROUP BY GYÖNGYVÉR FÉDERER-LÁZÁR - IDEAS FOR THE TEACHER’S HANDBOOK

Target audience All participants Public

Closed event

Contact Information Time and place

2011.10.15-18. Lisbon, Portugal

2nd partner meeting Date Description

25.05.2011 - THE HUNGARIAN PARTNER INTRODUCED THE WEBSITE, AND ITS TEAMWORK FEATURES - PRESENTING THE MOODLE SYSTEM, DISCUSSING THE POSSIBLE LEARNING OBJECTS - THE TEAM TRIED OUT THE WEBSITE IN THE COMPUTER ROOM - PREPARATION AND SHOOTING OF A CLIP ON PRESENTING A VIRTEX CLASS

Target audience All participants Public

Closed event

Contact Information Time and place

2011.05.25-28. Kuressare, Estonia

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Virtex adaptation for Hungary (2010-1-HU1-LEO05-00052)

Events Field visit in Estonia Date Description

04.04.2011 - PRESENTATIONS ABOUT HUNGARIAN WORLD HERITAGE SITES AND ESTONIAN WELLNESS TOURISM - WATCHING OTHER PROBABLE VIDEOS FOR VIRTEX, PREVIOUSLY MADE BY AMETIKOOL KURESSARE - LIVE ESP LESSON WITH 3RD YEAR FOOD SERVICE & CATERING STUDENTS - ENGLISH LESSON WITH 2ND YEAR HOTEL SERVICE STUDENTS WITH USING VIRTEX4ALL - LIVE ENGLISH LESSON WITH 2ND YEAR COOKING STUDENTS WITH USING VIRTEX4ALL - COMPARISON OF ESTONIAN AND HUNGARIAN CATERING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN GENERAL

Target audience Estonian and Hungarian partners Public

Closed event

Contact Information Time and place

2011.04.04-08. Kuressare, Estonia

Kickoff meeting Date Description

10.02.2011 - ESTONIAN AND HUNGARIAN PARTNERS INTRODUCED THEIR SCHOOLS - THE DUTCH PARTNER PRESENTED THE ORIGINAL VIRTEX PROJECT - THE TEAM VISITED THE KELTA VOCATIONAL SCHOOL, AND MET WITH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS - THE HUNGARIAN PARTNER PRESENTED THE TARGETS AND THE OUTCOMES OF THE PROJECT

Target audience all participants Public

Closed event

Contact Information Time and place

2011.02.10-13. Budapest, Hungary

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