Erasmus+ On­line Lan­guage Sup­port

The Erasmus+ programme gives you access to Online Language Support (OLS), which gives you the opportunity to improve your knowledge of the language you are studying abroad in. OLS makes language support accessible in a flexible and easy way and contributes to the promotion of language learning and linguistic diversity.
The online language support is available to you for three years. This gives you the opportunity to improve your language skills before, during and after your stay abroad. A total of 24 languages are currently available at different learning levels (from level A1 to xx). Both the range of languages and the individual learning levels will be gradually expanded in the future. Access to the language courses includes a wide variety of interactive and customised activities. You can also take language courses in any of the languages available on OLS with no limit on the number of languages and learning units and improve your language skills over a total period of three years.

To gain full access to the language learning programme, including the self-assessments, you must first join the individual language communities. Here you also have the opportunity to exchange ideas in the OLS forums (also known as communities) and discuss your language learning experiences. There are already 12 communities with their respective forums and community managers.

Online language tests

Before and after your exchange, you must complete an online language test in the language of tuition in order to assess your language level.

Please note: The results of the OLS test will not affect your exchange semester placement and Paderborn University will not share this information with the partner university.

However, you should take the result of the language test into careful consideration in your own planning. Does your current language level meet the requirements of the partner university? If this is not the case, please make use of OLS language courses and/or other language course offers (Centre for Language Studies, the partner university etc.).

Online language courses

In addition to online language tests, OLS also offers free online language courses.

After completing the online level assessment test, you will be granted access to an online language course. Please ensure that you log into OLS at least once a month otherwise your access will be revoked.

OLS is tailored to your needs. It is entirely up to you which course content you use and how much time you devote to learning.

The online language courses are continually updated and improved with new course content - check OLS regularly for new and interesting learning options!

Here you will find detailed instructions on the language tests and courses, which you must follow exactly in order to access the relevant sections. In case of technical difficulties, the Help Centre of the European Commission is at your disposal: Help centre (europa.eu). Unfortunately, the International Office cannot offer you any assistance as this is an external programme.