The Deaf Language Awareness project aims to increase the language awareness of deaf people.Language awareness is one of the factors influencing the learning of languages and foreign languages. The same is ​​among deaf adults. Good knowledge of the written language supports the inclusion of deaf citizens in ​​work, cultural services, and education. As part of the project, a partnership of 4 organizations from Poland, Austria, Portugal, and Italy developed 18 e-courses in 4 speech/sign language courses, a total of 72 language courses. Topics of e-courses are related to language knowledge and language processes: 1. What is a language?2. Why do we need a language?3. Language and speech4. What is learning?5. Learning strategies6. What is language acquisition?7. What is bilingualism?8. What does the brain have to do with language?9. What are bilingualism, multilingualism, and multilingualism from a social perspective?10. Language evolution11. Language families12. Figurative language13. Language translation/interpretation14. How do languages ​​describe objects?15. How do languages ​​describe activities and states?16. How do languages ​​describe features?17. What are function words in languages?18. What is grammar?Deaf specialists have worked in the e-course production process both as interpreters and as persons performing the tests.All courses are available free of charge, without registration, on the project website: www.deaflanguage.euFor all those who would like to implement e-courses in their country, partners share e-courses source files from the Articulate Story 3 program and the original course content in English. In the second part of 2021, multiplier events took place in each partner's country. Over 300 participants attended these events (live and online): deaf adults, deaf teachers, hearing teachers of the deaf, sign language interpreters, researchers, and specialists of sign language development.

"The focus of this project is students who require some level of support or consideration to be fully included in HE. While HE organisations have a stated mission to be inclusive and accessible places, anecdotal evidence from both students and teachers suggests that this is not always the case. Furthermore, awareness of accessibility and support strategies can tend to be in ""silos"" of knowledge such as equality and diversity units, student support centres, student enabling centres, faculty representatives for diversity and inclusion. HE lecturers , already under pressure to transfer their teaching materials and methodologies from classroom-based to online within a short timescale, have often had to focus on online teaching which suits the majority of their students. They may not consider or take into account additional accessibility options unless they are formally asked to do so by an organisational policy or a student's specific request for accommodation. It is accepted that when students have to request accommodations in advance, they are already being penalised or excluded to an extent, since students who do not require those same accommodations can simply turn up to any lecture without notice and be able to participate fully. To build a really inclusive higher education system, therefore, lecturers would need to incorporate as many accessibility features as possible, *without* waiting for student requests. InclUDE therefore has three objectives:•Provide an easy way to search and access free and open tools for online accessibility. •Create a practical, step-by-step resource that guides lecturers through setting up online teaching sessions that are accessible to a wide range of students. •Create guidelines of considerations that can help lecturers to make their teaching scheduling and practice more inclusive. These objectives will be reached through the production of 3 intellectual outputs: •IO1: Web repository of existing digital access tools (e.g. online transcription tools, website visibility checks for users with sight loss…);•IO2: Guidelines for accessible online teaching – how to make teaching via e.g. Zoom or Teams accessible to specific groups, for example:D/deaf students; students with sight loss; autistic students; students with mental health issues; economically disadvantaged students with limited access to technology/wifi (including Roma);•IO3: Guidelines for inclusive online teaching – looking at considerations for teaching practice that don't fall under the category of legally mandated accommodations, but can facilitate attendance and participation for students with a range of challenges. The outputs respond directly to this call in that they focus on activities to support learners, teachers and trainers in adapting to online/ distance learning, while facilitating quality and inclusive education. The direct target groups addressed by this project are:•HE lecturers - the main beneficiaries of the objectives and outputs mentioned above; •students - who will benefit from lecturers using best practice in online teaching. Indirect target groups include:•HE managers and administrators;•teachers from other fields (e.g. schools, adult education, VET);•learners from other fields;•local councils and ministries of education; •other policyholders in the field of education; •disability support and service organisations.The project will be managed using the Waterfall methodology, which works well with strategic partnerships that have the budget and outputs agreed from the very beginning. This project addresses the need to gather the best practice discovered under stress during the spring 2020 lockdown, as well as through ongoing online teaching. It further addresses the need for lecturers to have quick, practical and clear resources that they can use at their convenience, and without taking a lot of time away from everything else they are involved in. It aims to ensure that students in a range of circumstances do not get left behind as online and blended learning becomes more prevalent."

EC+-Enhancing communication aims to improve interaction with people with special needs and development of ICT resources and tools. It is a 27month project coordinated by the University of Malaga and within the European Commission framework under the 2015 Erasmus + programme KA2 “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices” in the field of Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education. The project aims at training students from several disciplines (education, psychology, interpreting and speech therapy) in specialized communication with disabled and developing a comprehensive framework of IT tools to enhance communication with people who are at high risk of total exclusion due to severe intellectual disability. The project has been conceived on the basis of reports from regional institutions in Andalusia, the demand of the disabled community stated in published documents, International academic research (Light and McNaughton, 2014), (Mirenda’s,2014) and the opinion of families, caregivers and professionals to provide accessible scientific guidelines and intervention tools for effective essential communication. The project has gathered three academic institutions and a hospital which are a reference in specialized research and also a training institutions for healthcare professionals. The target groups are university students who will be future professionals (teachers, speech therapists, psychologists, sign language interpreters, community interpreters) who will empower other target groups such as disabled subjects and healthcare professionals and caregivers who work with them with the necessary scientific information, strategies and tools for effective communication. The project targets a group of 2,500 students who will benefit directly from research and findings. Other stakeholders such as those suffering severe intellectual disability will be directly involved in the testing of tools and software. Those will reach the figure of 500 besides families and caregivers. There is a comprehensive methodology structure that join synergies of the various disciplines involved. On the side of Psychology, the methodology will be focused on the total communication approach (Schaeffer. & Kollinzas, 1980) and Makaton system (Jude Vinales, 2913). For interpreting, researchers will adopt the multimodality approach for communication (Bührig, 2004), Ventola (2004), Pascuandrea (2011), also adopted in disability research (Savvas et al 2008). For the pedagogical portal, resources and medical guides on a selection of rare diseases and other disabilities will be elaborated. All those resources will be hosted in a computerized database to be distributed by means of mobile applications. The approach of agile development methodologies (Ashmore, 2014), Rubin (2012) will be followed. OBJECTIVES: 1. To create a pedagogical portal which will offer open educational resources based on scientific and medical and psychology reference sources. 2. To create tools and software based on total communication approach, Makaton, sign language and multimodal resources that can be downloaded by using mobile applications. 3 . To train university students whose future profession involves working with disabled people. 4. To test products with stakeholders. 5. To collaborate with European partners in joint research and publish findings of the project in specialised journal. 6. To disseminate the project activities and findings and to make it sustainable. RESULTS: Databases pedagogical portal, scientific documents on rare diseases and disability, software to be downloaded with open licenses, virtual online courses, medical guides, academic works to be published in international journals or collective volumes. Three transnational meetings will be organized, an intensive program for higher education learners and an International Conference on Disability and Communication. The expected impact of the project will be to promote awareness on disability and communications needs at regional, national, European and international level, setting an example for international scope. The project is filling a gap on communication needs and empowering professionals and disabled people. One indicator of positive impact will be the evidence of the usefulness of resources by constant use of contents and positive feedback in questionaries’ after using resources. EC+ stability and continuity will be guaranteed by key participant research groups and a pedagogical portal with guidelines and resources that are open for all users and can be downloaded by mobile application technologies. Ph.D. research can further the results of this project. CONSORTIUM: University of Málaga (Coordinator) http://www.uma.es/ University of Klagenfurt http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/main/inhalt/1.htm University of Ghent https://www.ugent.be/en Fundació Parc Tauli http://www.tauli.cat/fundacio/

According World Health Organisation, over 5% of the world’s population – or 466 million people – has disabling hearing loss (432 million adults and 34 million children). One of the major barriers for Deaf people or with hearing loss is the lack of recognition, acceptance and use of sign language in all areas of life as well as lack of respect for Deaf people’s cultural and linguistic identity. This leads to marginalization of them in different aspects of life. In fact, there are a wide range of professionals who are interacting directly with deaf people, such as health workers, civil servants or others like salesmen, waiters or tour guides which could need a specific training in basic sign language tailored to their necessities to facilitate some services and full integration of deaf collective, even as workmates, increasing their job opportunities.The intention of SWING 2.0 is following the steps of the successful SWING project and facilitate, with innovative and free own developed tools, the acquisition and use of basic sign language in different work environments where its use could enhance the integration of deaf community at different levelsIn order to this, this project will develop:- 5 Field study researches and reports about different professional sectors: civil servants, Health workers, waiters, salesman and tour guides; including a compilation of the 100 most typical terms in those professions- 5000 videos recorded in 5 sign languages (International Sign Language, Italian Sign Language, Spanish Sign Language, German Sign Language and Austrian Sign Language) by sign language experts in Full HD resolution- Video-dictionary platform with integration of those 5000 videos, 1000 images and 2500 terms in fingerspelling. Video-dictionary will be available in 4 spoken languages (English, Italian, German and Spanish) and 5 sign languages (IS, LIS, LSE, DGS and ÖGS)- New SWING 2.0 app developed for learning the 100 most used words in 5 sectors in 5 sign languages with the possibility of downloading the preferred content by the user. It will be included glossary, filters and digital flashcard course- Training material based on simulation real environment in order to learn sign language imitating real situationsThese results will be achieved in a 30-month project. These results will be totally open and free accessible to the public and the partners will ensure of that with the publication of all the material in the own project website and in different open platforms to have bigger impactThe available outputs of this project will have impact and could be used mostly by VET teachers, Trainers or mentors to support people with hearing problems; hearing people working in clue job positions related with public administration, health sector, restaurant/bar, sell articles, travel/city tours; hearing-impaired and deaf people to acquire the vocabulary typical of certain services in important sectors; and researchers and developers in the field of disabilities to carry out themselves new sign language dictionaries for new areasSWING 2.0 brings together 5 partners from 4 different countries: Italy, Germany, Spain and Austria with complementary skills and with necessary background to achieve the goals of the project. The coordinator is CEIPES, International Centre for the Promotion of Education and Development (Italy) which is present in 8 European countries, and has great experience in European projects and involved in different projects promoting education of people with special needs and work integration. In addition to coordinator, the partnership is formed by: 1- Klagenfurt University (Austria) who are one of the most important exponents in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) and experts in designing training materials for learning sign language. 2- University of Erlangen with their Innovation in Learning Institute -ILI (Germany) who are promoting technology enhanced learning adapted to the needs of different target groups. 3- CETEM (Spain), which is a research and VET centre strongly connected with professional world and involved in several projects related with the improvement of employability of people with disability. 4-Istituto Statale Sordi di Roma (Italy)founded in 1784 and first special school for deaf people in Italy and longstanding experience in educating hearing people to the interaction with Deaf peopleThis project will have impact at local, regional, national and European level in different job professions, employers and associations fostering the inclusion of Deaf community at different levels (social, work market…)Finally, it will be developed a strong social network in the field of promoting inclusion and development of sign language competence which will ensure the sustainability of the project results and the continuous impact on lifelong education in Europe.

Research indicates that the employment rate of deaf or hard of hearing people is significantly lower than hearing people. Reasons include workplace communication issues, evidence of disability discrimination in the recruitment process and lack of access to traditional careers advice services. As a result, many Deaf people are turning to self-employment - a distinct area of growth, but still under-represented in terms of accessible training and resources. SignMedia Enterprise (SME) aimed to address these issues through the development of an accessible web based glossary for sign language users with an interest in the business sector and a package of supporting resources and materials. The main target users were deaf people in business and self-employment and those with an interest in setting up their own business, along with other beneficiaries are sign language interpreters, business students, hearing business professionals, teachers of the deaf, sign language students and policy makers. These groups were therefore the priority when identifying, selecting and engaging with project participants for various project activities.The project aimed to not only support deaf people who are already freelance/ in business but also provide opportunities for Deaf people to start their own businesses. The ability for sign language users to learn technical vocabulary will enable enhanced mobility, creative collaboration and employment across Europe for deaf people will be a key impact.The consortium consisted of 5 partners. University of Wolverhampton (UK) as lead partner, Bellyfeel Media Limited (UK) , University of Klagenfurt (Austria), Istituto dei Sordi di Torino (Italy) and Alba Società Cooperativa Sociale (Italy).The methodology and results of the project were based around 3 key Intellectual Outputs ( O2 Content development, adaptation and testing, O3 Technical Development; O4 Support and Training), 4 project meetings, management activities and dissemination activity. A 500 item business glossary in the 3 sign languages has been created signmediaenterprise.com and is free to use. The terms include a written definition, illustration and signed video and can be accessed in a number of different ways to assist with accessibility. The glossary is structured around the format of a business plan. There is also a 100 term International Sign glossary https://signmediaenterprise.com/a-z/?lang=isl . To support the glossary, 6 video case studies were created which focus on deaf led businesses. These aim to inspire and support the target audiences and provide real lief examples. https://signmediaenterprise.com/case-studies/ It was envisaged that a total of 99 individuals from target groups, stakeholder and internal partner staff would be involved and this was achieved through a range of activities, including internal testing, questionnaires, live launch, events and remote testing. The technical development team created the app structure, design and functionality to create the design, final structure and uploading of the content to the app. The final phase of the project blended dissemination with marketing and training along with an ongoing social media conversation with the target audience. A series of templates and tools were created along with users guides for trainees and trainers. It was envisaged that 1000 people would be reached directly and indirectly through project activities and this was far exceeded. Multiplier Events could not be carried out as planned due to COVID restrictions. Instead a cross-partner live launch event took place in June 2020. The event was targeted predominantly at the target groups and was delivered in international sign language to ensure wide engagement. It took place via Facebook Live which has resulted in a recording of the event being available on an ongoing basis from the project website. The event provided information about the project, the needs analysis findings, outcomes from testing, the app content and most importantly showed delegates how to access and use the app themselves. It also showcased the support and training available. The live launch on Facebook has had 1200 views on the launch date and since. This demonstrates significant impact, which is greater than would have been achieved at face to face events.In order to ensure that SME produced an app that is relevant and appropriate to the target groups, it was vital that individuals and organisations, outside of the consortium, were engaged with. The glossary has been positively received by the target groups and as a result impact has been very positive. This is demonstrated through the results of testing and piloting and anecdotal evidence in relation to the need for the project activities and outputs. It is also demonstrated through the high levels of engagement with social media.