Pulse 2.0: Assessment of language and communication skills for foreign nursing assistants and caregivers’ aims at reinforcing and facilitating language, communicative and intercultural competences relevant to the medical workplace in the nursing and caregiving sector.

Concept

The Pulse 2.0 project will reinforce and facilitate language and communication competences relevant to the medical workplace in order to improve employability and enhance European competitiveness.

The project addresses health associate professionals, nursing assistants and personal care workers in mobility or planning mobility, training organizations providing tailored training for health care staff, and employers in the health care sector with the aim to contribute to developing solutions to the identified challenges by:

  • designing, piloting and validating assessment tools aimed at measuring language proficiency in Swedish, Italian and German as foreign languages in an occupational context, more specifically in the nursing and caregiving sector in Sweden, Austria and Italy.
  • providing an autonomous access to innovative language learning resources and instruments for language skills testing;
  • facilitating the development of innovative language learning and assessment practices in the field of vocational education and training;
  • rising awareness of needs of inclusion and of cultural and linguistic diversity in a professional context.

Objectives

The project aims at:

  • improvement and assessment of language, communicative and intercultural competences of nursing assistant and caregivers who work or plan to work in a foreign country
  • Improvement of capacities of VET and language education providers by delivering to them tailored products: workplace language learning and assessment didactic and tools relevant to lower-skilled healthcare professional groups

Activities

  • Research study on the needs for language, communication and intercultural competencies of foreign nursing assistant and caregivers in Sweden, Italy and Austria
  • Development of Methodology for assessment of workplace language and communication for nursing assistants and caregivers
  • Development of Assessment tool - task-based and domain-specific language proficiency tests in Swedish, Italian and German, related to CEFR B1.
  • Development of Learning tool - full package with online preparation materials for the assessment tests in Swedish, Italian and German, designed to be used as part of a VET training , or as self-training.
  • Piloting the products with end-users in Sweden, Italy, Austria and Romania
  • Organisation of exploitation events with stakeholders in 4 countries for dissemination, valorisation and sustainability