According to recent studies developed by the European Commission, there is an urgent need to improve Initial Teacher Education (ITE) to make it more attractive, collaborative, and system-wide focused. Some of the competencies identified are the selection, short-term vision, and poor performance of the evaluation system. The VirTeach Project is a step forward to advance the work previously developed by other networks that have sought to achieve the internationalization of educational practice. Although labor mobility in this sector is continuously growing, there is no unified format for teacher training at the European level. Neither digital platforms to promote mobility nor unified digital tools to guide the needs of students during their internship phase exist.

The creation of the suggested digital space in the VirTeach Project would foster the internationalization and convergence of national formats, as well as the exchange of methodologies and best practices.

Objectives

• Design useful and easy-to-use digital tools for ITE, focused on knowledge transfer, social networks, and support during the internship phase.
• Investigate a coherent framework of competencies and institutional action guidelines.
• Promote the sharing of innovative practices in initial teacher training for language teachers and the internationalization of their training practices, progressing towards European convergence.

This project would provide a compendium of best practices and resources for teacher trainees (O1). It would create a digital space for meeting and exchange among teacher trainers, students, and service centers, also providing a digital space to increase coherence between training and the internship phase (O2). A series of guidelines, specifically for public administrators, will be published (O3). Additionally, two events will be organized to disseminate these results and collect feedback: An International Workshop and Formative Assessment and the First European Conference on Foreign Language Teacher Training.

Research Team

• Ana Cunha (CeiED/Lusófona University)
• Fernando Catarino (CICANT/Lusófona University)

Partners

The project involves 5 entities from 5 countries of the European Union as follows:

• Universidad de Burgos 
• UC Limburg 
• Szczecińska Szkoła Wyższa Collegium Balticum
• Universitatea Crestina Dimitrie Cantemir
• Lusófona University