Second Language Services Working Group (LSWG) Meeting in Athens
Hot temperatures and cool ideas: Report from the 2nd meeting of the Language Services Working Group (LSWG), 12-13 June 2025, Athens
The Language Services Working Group (LSWG) has just had its second meeting – this time at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). Despite the unusually hot weather for June, we set about discussing and clarifying the scope and goals of the five subprojects defined at the first meeting at the Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) in October 2024. These five subprojects were given the green light by their respective WPs and include both tandem- and project learning, creating a glossary and offering a blended intensive programme. We also began a sixth subproject: the creation of a EULiST language centre with 20 language courses, which has been defined as one of the key performance indicators (KPI) within EULiST.
It was great to see that eight of the ten EULiST universities were able to participate, either in person in Athens or online. The meeting, meticulously organised by our colleague Goni Togia (NTUA), began with a warm welcome by Professor Athanasios Zisis, Management Board Co-Chair and Vice Rector for Academic Affairs and Life-Long Learning, Professor A. Zisis. He was followed by the NTUA Executive Director, Dr. M. Vardaki and the EULIST Scientific Coordinator, Professor Emeritus K. Adam. The presence of local members of various EULiST WPs helped in connecting our discussions to ideas in the wider project.
We then continued with progress reports from the five subgroups, starting with subgroup 2 on the EULiST tandem platform, led by Klaus Schwienhorst (LUH). We plan to open the tandem platform to all EULiST students in October 2025 and hope to solve any challenges we face until then. This involves creating a short tandem video, organising webinars for teachers and workshops for tandem counsellors, editing texts in the interface and adding new functionality.
After an excellent lunch, we continued with subgroup 3 on project-based learning and language courses, led by Ben Hill (IMT). This group aims to compile a good-practice guidebook and conduct a survey on project-based learning, followed by a pilot programme in 2025-2026. We also discussed how we could contribute to the EULiST student conference in Douai, which had been requested at very short notice. We welcomed the request, and agreed that Ben would discuss our ideas with the organising committee. Valuable contributions to the discussions were made by NTUA members: A. Lampropoulou (Local Coordinator / CO, Joint PR Unit, Task 5.3 lead, Task 1.2, 5.1 and 5.5), Prof. E. Pavlatou (School of Chemical Engineering), E. Skordalaki (Task 2.5), Prof. K. Spyrou (School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering) and Assoc. Prof. S. Vouyiouka (School of Chemical Engineering). In the evening, NTUA invited us to a fabulous outdoor dinner at a tavern not far from the Acropolis.
The second day started with a presentation by Professor Mitrou from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NTUA, on controlled vocabularies and subject classification. This provided an excellent introduction to subgroup 4, whose goal is to create a EULiST glossary and select a standard variety of English to be used in EULiST. The subgroup is led by Joy Reid (LUH), assisted by Chris Schubert (TUW). Jolana Tlukova (BUT) will coordinate a more short-term project on the compilation of a glossary for Erasmus student journeys to facilitate student exchanges. The whole LSWG agreed that British English should be used consistently throughout all EULiST documentation (e.g. the website, brochures, announcements, protocols). This involves mostly spelling, but also choice of vocabulary. We will inform the relevant WPs shortly.
After lunch, we moved on to subproject 5 which plans to set up a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) on global citizenship education and languages in intercultural communication. This BIP is organised by Pasi Puranen (LUT) together with Dagmar Schimmel (LUH) and Natalja Zabeida (LUH). The group plans to have all promotional materials ready by October 2025, so that the BIP can take place as planned in early 2026.
We then also discussed subproject 1, which would compile all language services by EULiST partners on a web site by October 2025. WP 3 will define how the language services can be linked to the EULiST course catalogue. Klaus Schwienhorst leads this subgroup together with Goni Togia .
We also turned our attention to a new subproject (no. 6) which deals with the creation of 20 language courses, one of the key performance indicators (KPI) within EULiST. Magda Sučková (BUT) leads this subgroup and will arrange a first online meeting to discuss the framework for these language courses. The goal is to enable students from all EULiST universities to achieve rudimentary language skills in all EULiST languages to facilitate exchanges and other study visits. It was encouraging that several LSWG could start as early as winter semester 2025. Finally, the group nominated Klaus Schwienhorst as LSWG coordinator, and Ben Hill as assistant coordinator. Additional NTUA participants in the second day’s discussions included: Prof. E. Dimopoulou (Task 2.1 lead), E. Skordalaki (Task 2.5) and A. Iliakis (Task 5.4).
The second LSGW meeting ended with a delicious meal in Athens’ old town. Many thanks to Goni Togia for the great preparation, fabulous hospitality and excellent organisation of the meeting. The next LSWG meeting is planned for early December 2025 in Madrid where will hopefully be able to review how our first projects have been implemented.
