Portugal

Did you know that…

“Portugal has one minority language, Mirandese, spoken and to some extent written in the north-eastern border town of Miranda do Douro (pop. around 2,000) and in surrounding areas within Portugal by at most 10,000 persons, (almost) all of them bilingual. [In total, 0.1% of the national population]. It was recognized in 1999 as co-official with Portuguese for local matters. The Mirandese language belongs linguistically to the Asturian/Leonese group. Mirandese is recognized as an official language in the council of Miranda do Douro in Law 7/99, of 29 January 1999.

In the Mirandese-speaking area, teachers have been permitted since 1985 to devote explicit attention to the Mirandese language and use it as a medium of instruction. Pre-service training is available for pre-school teachers in the area where Mirandese is spoken.

The city council of Miranda do Douro provides many written services in Mirandese and Spanish as well as Portuguese.”

The Portugal launch will take place on 21 June 2012 in the European Commission building in Lisbon (Representação da Comissão Europeia em Portugal (Lg Jean Monnet, 1-10º, Lisboa).

The programme is as follows (in Portuguese):

14:30     Abertura
15:00     Início dos trabalhos

• Luiz Sá Pessoa – Chefe da Representação da Comissão Europeia em Portugal
• Mário Filipe – Vice-Presidente do Instituto Camões
• Gill Caldicott – Diretora do British Council Portugal
• Maria Helena Mira Mateus – Diretora, Instituto de Linguística Teórica e Computacional

15:30     Apresentação do projeto e dos resultados europeus

• Martin Hope – Diretor do Projeto “Language Rich Europe”
• Aneta Quraishy – Gestora do Projeto

16:00     Apresentação dos resultados nacionais

• Lachlan Mackenzie – Investigador, Instituto de Linguística Teórica e Computacional

16:30     Pausa para café

16:45     Sessão plenária – debate sobre os resultados do projeto:

• Carlos Ceia – Universidade Nova de Lisboa
• Lachlan Mackenzie – Investigador, Instituto de Linguística Teórica e Computacional
• Mário Filipe – Vice-Presidente do Instituto Camões
• Martin Hope – Diretor do Projeto “Language Rich Europe”

17:45     Conclusões

• Ricardo Salomão – Universidade Aberta

18:00     Fim dos trabalhos

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Greece

Did you know that…

“There is considerable investment from the state sector and through extra private provision in traditional foreign language learning from pre-primary stage onwards, but very little opportunity to learn languages from outside Europe. Immigrant languages remain unrepresented in education sector however and are mostly taught in the communities themselves.”

The Greece launch, entitled “Trends in Language Policies and Practices, The findings of the Language Rich Europe Survey”, will take place on Thursday 21 June at 18.00 in Goethe Institut, 14-16 Omirou Street, Athens.

The programme of the launch is as follows:

• Welcome from Dr. Matthias Makowski, Director Goethe Institut Athens
• Introduction by Tony Buckby, Director British Council Greece
• Greeting from Eusebi Ayensa Prat, President EUNIC Greece.
• Welcome and Introductions from Miltos Pavlou, Panel Chair
• Eilidh MacDonald, British Council Language Rich Europe team:  What is Language Rich Europe – an overview
• Dr Kutlay Yagmur, University of Tilburg: What do the findings reveal?
• Dr Sara Hannam, Oxford Brookes/SEERC: The local Greek context
• Prof. Bessie Dendrinos, RCEL, University of Athens:  Challenges and opportunities for Greece