- Background of the project In global markets intercultural and foreign language competences have become a key skill for the merchant for freight forwarding and logistics services in addition to the technical training objectives. Often, the educational background of the trainee is not sufficient for communicating with international customers. In order to guarantee a succesful training in the profession of the merchant for freight forwarding and logistics services, English is - besides other cultural experiences - an irreplaceable working tool. The international transport of goods by air and sea is subject to standard regulations and integral part of the training for the merchant for freight forwarding and logistics services. Therefore operational handling and invoicing of sea/air import and export shipments are comparatively easy to learn abroad. Staff of the vocational training and education is hardly familliar with the instruments of the vocational training in the patner countries. There is a special need in the development of language skills and intercultural comptetences for trainees in the profession of merchants for freight forwarding and logistics services, in daily life and in the interaction with international customers and multnational teams. Schenker Deutschland AG has won independent branches in Great Britain as well as in Turkey as partners in order to meet these requirements. - Number and profile of participants 10 merchants for freight forwarding and logistics services in training will be temporarily employed in a forwarding agency in Great Britain for 13 weeks or in Turkey for 12 weeks. The young people are in the second year of training and have the possibility to participate in this programm from the beginning of September 2014 until the end of May 2016. 2 members of the HR department are going to study the instruments of the vocational training and education in UK for 4 daies. - Description of activities The trainees work actively and take part in the daily grind of company in the UK or in Turkey. They learn the contents of the training in the field of air- and seafreight and the internal sales department as defined in the LA and MoU. The trainees can use and improve their language skills on workaday life and privately. Staff of the vocational training and education analyze diffrences in both systems and generate common grounds. - Desciption of aspired results and effects of the long-term benefit When organising educational vistis abroad, learning objectives have to be defined and adjusted. For realising our project we aspire an approach that is orientated on an educational result and use for example ECVET instruments like Mo, LA and EUOPASS Mobility (attachement). The description of learning results is published on the national ECVET Portal (http://www.ecvet-info.de/_media/ECVET-Raster_Kfm_Spedition_und_Logistikdienstleistung_Unit_1-3.pdf) In the long term we expect that also our partners abroad will use ECVET instruments for the qualification of their employees in order to achieve a comparability in professional qualification in Europe. An added value for the participating companies is that a lack of language skills won’t be the reason for failing businesses and that communication, appreciation and cooperation between foreign business partners or partner organisations improves as participants had a look inside the local fields of work. - Aims of the project After the visit the trainees will be in the position to follow a professional conversation and to understand more complex argumentations with regard to contents. Moreover they will be able to read professional articles and reports.They could have developped their productive language skills and experienced how language can be completed by training on-the-job. They will be able to communicate spontaneously and fluently so that a usual professional talk to colleagues and customers will be possible. They will have learned to deal with cultural characters in a sensitive way and to have them in mind when interacting with colleagues, customers and friends. They also will have learned that there are further job possibilities in the foreign countries of Europe. The trainees will be able to handle sea/air export and import shipments includig pre- and oncarriage considering the requirements, to issue all required forms, to track the shipment until arrival and to issue invoices for customers subsequently as well as to support the internal sales officer in it’s daily tasks (preparation of offers, Smart data-care, arranging appointments with customers for visist of the external sales officer.) This part of the training qualifies the young people for the European labour market and fosters their willingness for mobility in Europe. Staff of the vocational training and education will be able to describe first common learning units.