1. Using the ELP/Utiliser le PEL http://elp-implementation.ecml.at
ECML closing conference 29 September – 1 October, 2011
Conference 2011/Nezbeda

2. On behalf of the project team of elp-tt3 let me welcome you to this presentation of ECML‘s brand-new ELP implementation website „Using the ELP/Utiliser le PEL“. This website forms part of the Council of Europe‘s new ELP portal, which provides information on the development of ELPs and a service for the registration of new models and many other features. When you access the Council of Europe‘s portfolio website you can either go to the section „Developing and registering an ELP“ or to the ECML‘s ELP implementation website „Using the ELP“.
„Using the ELP“ is the result of 20 years ELP history, and in particular of 8 years of ECML projects dedicated to the ELP and the work carried out by teacher educators, multipliers and practitioners in ECML member states.
Before I‘m going to present some features of the website, let us go back to the roots and ask ourselves „What exactly is the ELP and where did it come from“?
The history of the ELP goes back to the days of the Rüschlikon symposium 1991 when the development of the CEFR and the ELP was proposed. In 1997 an intergovernmental conference in Strasbourg recommended pilot projects in member states; pilot projects were then carried out from in 15 member states and by 3 INGOs. In 2001, the year of languages, the ELP was launched.
To date there are 118 accredited models for all age groups in different countries and languages. Austria e.g. has developed 8 ELP models since the early days of the pilot projects, three of them by the ÖSZ, the Austrian Centre for Language Competence in Graz.
You can read all about the history of the ELP on the Council of Europe‘s registration website.

3. What is the European Language Portfolio?
Three obligatory parts:
Language passport: Documents linguistic identity and language proficiency/intercultural experience of the learner
Language biography: Accompanies the process of language learning: Self-assessment, goal-setting, reflection
Dossier: Collects evidence of learner‘s language proficiency and intercultural learning
What is the ELP? In order to be recognized as such, three parts are obligatory: 1. The language passport - a document which summarizes the language learner‘s linguistic identity and records his or her language proficiency and intercultural experience, 2. a language biography to accompany the learning process (self-assessment, goal-setting, reflection) and 3. a dossier to collect evidence of the learner‘s proficiency.

4. ECML project “Training teachers to use the ELP”
: History
ELP_TT
ELP_TT
ELP_TT
The ECML has been involved in the implementation of the ELP since 2004 when it launched the “Training teachers to use the ELP” project in its 2nd MTP. The first project in a series of three aimed to develop and disseminate a kit of materials for teacher education, which you can find on the new website.
Parallel to ELP_TT – and IMPEL - there is a further ELP project looking at the use of the ELP within a whole school context: ELP Whole School Use, coordinated by David Little – you’ll hear all the details about it in his presentation tomorrow.
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

5. ELP_TT 2004-2007 Project results of ELP_TT (and IMPEL):
materials (training kit) for teacher training
reports on national events
useful resources (glossary, documents, case studies, links etc.)
“Training teachers to use the ELP 1” was coordinated by Professor David Little from Trinity College, Dublin. In his team were Hans Peter Hodel from Switzerland, Viljo Kohonen from Finland, the late Dick Meijer from the Netherlands and Radka Perclova from the Czech Republic, the co-author of the “Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers”.
Materials for teacher training – the so called “training kit” - was developed and they were first used in the Central Workshop in I was one of the very lucky participants back in 2004, and this workshop helped me a lot (I was one of the developers of the Austrian ELP for lower secondary then) to gain deeper insight into the ELP philosophy and methodology.
In parenthesis let me mention IMPEL (Implementing the ELP), a second ELP project between 2004 and 2007, the coodinator of which was Hans Ulrich Bosshard (Switzerland); the aim of this project was to facilitate the ELP implementation process. You can find information about the project on the new website under the rubric „ECML projects“.
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

6. ELP_TT 2004-2007 17 national events between 2004-2007 Albania Armenia
Austria
Czech Republic
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Iceland
Latvia
Lithuania
Liechtenstein
Norway
Poland
Romania
Sweden
„The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia“
The aim of the teacher training materials was to inform and empower multipliers in ECML member states in so called “national events”, so that those multipliers could then train teachers in their local context.
The ELP_TT team moderated so-called national events in 17 ECML countries between 2004 and 2007:
………………………………………..
Austria had its “national event” in 2006 here in on the premises of the ECML Graz - moderated by David Little.
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

7. Follow-up ELP-TT2, 2008-2009 Project objectives:
1st short-term project in the 3rd MTP „Empowering Language Professionals“
(Continuity in language learning)
Project objectives:
Dissemination of „training kit“ developed in ELP_TT in „national events“ for local multipliers
Further implementation of the ELP
Establishing a network of ELP multipliers across Europe
When the 2nd programme ended in 2007, the ECML decided to continue the dissemination of the training kit in the form of national events also in its third programme, which is now coming to an end. I was commissioned to coordinate the first of two short term follow ups between 2008 and 2009, ELP-TT2. When I was asked I was first rather sceptical whether I could carry on the work begun by the “big names” in ELP history but when Heike Speitz from Norway, one of the members of the Validation Committee, accepted the invitation to be in my team I felt more at ease. I would like to thank her and the other team members Martine Tchang-George, Switzerland/France, Ülle Türk, Estonia and Barbara Lesnicar (Slovenia) for their efforts, the time and work they devoted to our common goal.
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

8. Follow-up ELP-TT2 2008-2009 10 national events between 2008 and 2009:
Andorra (2008)
Croatia (2008)
Cyprus (2008)
Greece (2008)
Montenegro (2009)
Slovak Republic (2008)
Slovenia (2008, 2009)
Switzerland (2009)
United Kingdom (2009)
Between 2008 and national events took us to 9 more ECML countries from Andorra to Switzerland, to put them into an alphabetical order. At this poont I’d like to thank the ECML staff for their perfect support in organizing the events – without your help I would probably have panicked more than once in those two stressful years!
Ms. Nada Holc from the Slovene ELP project organized 2 events for Slovenia – she will be talking to you about the implementation process in Slovenia in a few minutes.
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

9. Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up
Output of ELP-TT2 ( )
The dissemination of the ELP kit was one aim of the project, the other one was to develop a platform with information on the project, with resources, references and links, FAQs and practical information for teacher educators, multipliers and practitioners.
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

10. Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up
Follow-up ELP-TT
2nd ELP short-term project in the 3rd programme „Empowering Language Professionals“ (Continuity in language learning)
Project objective:
To make suggestions concerning structure and content and
to collect materials for ELP implementation website
All good things come in threes:
The third in the series of “ELP_TT” projects running from was aimed at the development of the “Using the ELP” website in co-operation with the ECML. At the moment the website is still work in progress as you will soon find out but with your help it may become a very rich website indeed. I would like to thank the ECML staff for listening to our suggestions concerning the structure and the content of the website and for being extremely patient with me over the last weeks. Thank you very much!
Training Teachers to Use the ELP, follow-up

11. Network Meeting September 23-24, 2010:
Aims of the network meeting:
To bring together European ELP projects/experts to establish a network of and for ELP multipliers through discussing/sharing
ELP experience
useful (teacher training) materials for various contexts
samples of good practice
links to relevant ELP websites …
To discuss key issues and strategies for networking
In order to liaise with international ELP experts and to strengthen the existing network of ELP multipliers the project team decided to organize a network meeting in 2010 with 16 participants from ECML countries. Most of the experts who participated work as teacher educators and multipliers in networks.
At the network meeting we all agreed that we need to pool our efforts to implement the ELP and its underlying pedagogy.
In and after the event most of the participants provided us with materials for various target groups developed in their own professional contexts or in international projects, such as ELPBVI or EuroIntegrELP. Some of the materials are in other languages than English, in particular we received German materials but we also got Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Slovene files, which you can find in the „Country examples“ on the website.
Special attention was paid to the discussion of e-portfolios, such as the„epos“ project in Bremen, which may have great potential for users in the future.
We hope we can have even more materials in more languages in the future – in order to achieve this goal we depend on you to provide the ECML with suitable files and information.
At the end of the presentation I‘ll give you the contact address where to send your feedback and your contributions.

12. Implementation website „Using the ELP“
Now after - a rather extensive - look back at 8 years of ELP projects at the ECML to the website proper:
What is the aim of the ELP implementation website?
Following the development of a new Council of Europe portal for the European Language Portfolio including a new registration system for ELP models the EMCL presents a dedicated section on the use of the ELP in a wide set of contexts including teacher training.
Together with the website moderated by the Language Policy Division at the Council of Europe focussing on how to develop an ELP and on providing a service for registering new models, this ELP implementation site forms part of the Council of Europe portal for the European Language Portfolio. 
As mentioned earlier, the ELP implementation website brings together the results of several major European ELP implementation projects on one single website.
It contains information for different target groups on how to use the ELP. ELP experts involved in ECML activities collected practical materials like videos, power point presentations, posters, worksheets as well as links, references and FAQs. The aim of the website is to promote the pedagogical benefits of the ELP and to facilitate its use in practice. WORK IN PROGRESS!!!
What can you find there? Show website! Home, videos, ECML projects/EU projects, country examples, link to regristration website.
My team and I will be assisting the website team until the end of our project, which is December It’s a great pleasure for me to announce that Mr Gareth Hughes, member of the Validation Committee, has agreed to support the ECML in the maintenance of the website so that it can be further developed and kept alive.

13. To end the presentation on a lighter note and to link theory to real life I‘d like to present the facebook group „Friends of the European Language Portfolio“ which you can view even if you are not on Facebook. Just click on the Facebook icon on the website – it‘ll take you right there!

14. Feedback and contributions
Please send your feedback and contributions to: Re: ELP website
We hope to welcome you as visitors to the website - and to the Facebook group - very soon. Please give us, i.e. the ECML feedback and – above all – contribute your expertise so that the ELP website can grow and thrive!
Thank you very much for your attention – I‘ll be available until the end of the iconference, please don‘t hesitate to ask any questions.
Now let me hand over to Ms Holc from the Slovene School Board. She is going to talk about the Slovene ELP project.