Tag Archives: English

English as the language of Europe?

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In this guest post, Christiane Keilig from the British Council in Berlin shares her views on why just English isn’t enough.

Last Friday the German president, Joachim Gauck, proposed to make English the language of the EU.  I was surprised to hear it  – why did he say that? Just to appease the British and make sure they stay aboard the EU? Or to allay fears that Germany is becoming too powerful? It’s probably a bit of both. But, thinking about it, it does seem to make sense, because:

  • English is comparatively easy to learn (I had to learn Latin and Greek  as first foreign languages and I rejoiced in English)
  • It is already an established business language and dominates in certain areas, for instance IT and banking
  • It is the language spoken by big economies

Okay, but.

There are also other huge economies out there and I would argue that if you want to sell a product or a service to a foreign market, you need to speak their language and not just English.

Because a market, or rather, countries, are also about culture and I believe that you cannot truly understand a culture without speaking the language – language itself reveals a lot about a country’s mindset.

Also, business is not all. Especially in Europe and in times of crisis, it is important that we understand each other – we cannot afford to threaten a construct which, although fraught with bureaucracy, is also there to maintain peace. Personally, I sometimes think that aspect is sadly underrated.

Moreover, in times of globalisation and mobility, with families living and working far away from their home country, it’s also important their children can learn their mother tongue – it is a vital part of their identity and culture.  So it’s not just about learning the language of the country they’re now living in and then ‘just’ English.

Just to pick up on one of the areas of the project’s research: Education. The Language Rich Europe research clearly shows a tendency for English as the most widely chosen language to be learned at school – which could be seen to be endangering the diversity of languages.  It is important that especially at school other languages are taught with the same importance attached to them .

For instance, the school my son goes to offers English, French and Latin and you can choose the order in which you learn the languages. I convinced him to learn Latin first, as that gives him a good basis for grammar and all romanic languages. It would be a shame if opportunities like that would disappear.

At the conference on 5  March, Language Rich Europe’s experts will present recommendations for more language diversity in the areas of Education, Audiovisual Media and Press, Public services and Spaces, and Business. They will present the outcomes of the project’s research and will surely provide food for thought and discussions.

Why not join the debate? Do you think English should be the language of Europe?  Comment here or tweet @LanguageRich  to  let us know what you think!

New Multilingual Synopsis of the European Training Thesaurus

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We have just heard about this exciting new tool for training professionals and wanted to share it with you. This article originally appeared in Europa news on languages.

New Multilingual Synopsis of the European Training Thesaurus - Are you a training professional? A new multilingual toolkit for you.

The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) has recently published the new Multilingual Synopsis of the European Training Thesaurus for all those working in education, training and employment.

The publication, which is available online, is a selection of 1,207 terms and concepts which appear frequently in literature related to European vocational education and training. The tool, which is the basis for the complete online thesaurus CEDEFOP is currently preparing, allows for quick navigation by language, term and topic.

The terms/concepts cover several topics such as lifelong learning, vocational education and training policy, assessment and certification of learning outcomes, recognition of certificates and diplomas. Each term is presented in 11 languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Swedish.

To download the thesaurus, click here.

Key findings: Languages in pre-primary education

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Pre-primary pupilLanguage Rich Europe research provides a rich source of cross-national insights into multilingualism across the education sectors. Today we focus on pre-primary education.

  • Many European Union and Council of Europe documents underline the importance of early language learning. At pre-primary level, 14 of the 24 countries/regions surveyed provide additional support in the national language for all children funded by the state. The Netherlands and Ukraine devote the most time to this.
  • Foreign language provision at this level is offered by seven countries/regions: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Basque Country, Bulgaria, Catalonia, Estonia, Spain and Ukraine, although it may be partly or fully funded by parents/guardians. English, French and German are the most common languages offered.
  • Regional/minority languages are offered by 17 countries/regions, and are mainly funded by the state/region. In some countries there are minimum group size requirements to form a group. The widest variety of languages is offered in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Ukraine.
  • Provision in immigrant languages in pre-primary education is not yet very common. However, in spite of the difficulties involved in identifying appropriate teachers and learning materials, three countries (Denmark, Spain and Switzerland) do offer support to very young children for the maintenance and development of their languages and cultures of origin. In Denmark national, regional and local funds cover all costs for these programmes, while in Spain and Switzerland source-country related funds partly cover the costs through bilateral agreements.
  • The only country offering early language learning across all language types is Spain.

If you haven’t already, have a read of Baby Erasmus, a great initiative in Spain and share any other good practice examples from your country by responding to this post!

You can read the LRE profile for your country on the country profile page of our website and find out more about our key findings in the first part of this series – Key findings: Official documents and databases.

Maži mažakalbiai – is Lithuania ‘a small nation with a small number of languages?’

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Vilma Bačkiūtė, Project Manager British Council Lithuania, summarises an article about Language Rich Europe which first appeared in the Lithuanian magazine, IQ I 2012 metai I Rugpjūtis 08 (29)

The August issue of the monthly magazine IQ devotes three full pages to an article on the Language Rich Europe results and language policy issues in Lithuania. The article by Viktorija Vitkauskaitė is an interesting read and covers a number of key points suggested by the LRE launch in Vilnius. The ‘average performance’ by Lithuania is summed up in a quotation by Dr Irena Smetonienė, who states that ‘Lithuania is neither among high achievers, nor among loosers’. Still, the title of the article ‘Maži mažakalbiai’ suggests that Lithuania is ’a small nation with a small number of languages’. The LRE findings actually do not look too worrying for Lithuania, but the IQ article suggests the we should start reviewing our language curricula as we are losing the competitive edge as a country and living the strategy of ‘English is enough’.

The key points covered in the article are:

-         Children at pre-school age can learn languages only ‘out of their parents’ pocket’ and here Lithuania is lacking behind seven countries in the LRE research.

-          English prevails in all sectors at the expense of other languages, which is not different from anywhere else, but not at such a high percentage: 92% of secondary school learners choose English and continue it as the only language in the later stages of education (!)

-          Companies require language skills, but neither invest in nor use the linguistic capacity of the staff. Prof. Boguslavas Gruževskis says: ‘This is a general problem which is a result of low valuing of work force [by employers]’. Lifelong Learning programmes are there for language learning but not used.

-          Employees of state institutions are encouraged and supported more in language learning, but there is a lack of multilingualism in city services. Kęstutis Ambrozaitis, executive manager of Lithuanian Tours, confirms that tourists lack services other than in English in Lithuania, although, for example, German tourism has grown by 23% in the last year.

-          The article also expands on immigrant languages that receive no attention at all in Lithuania. Immigrant languages will likely be ignored in decades to come. Prof. Boguslavas Gruževskis is quoted as saying that it’s an unfortunate trend, as by ‘’using’’ immigrants and their language potential the country’s economy /employers can gain a lot, including access to other countries and cultures.

-         Loreta Senkutė, president of the Lithuanian Youth Council (LiJOT), voices the students’ suggestion for a major change in language education for Lithuania: all learners throughout education should learn more than one compulsory foreign language and English should preferably be offered as the second foreign language in the school curriculum as it is picked up faster than other languages due to its spread in media, music, movies, etc.

Readers of Lithuanian can access the full article at http://iq.lt/iq-zurnalas/ (see issue IQ 2012 m. Nr. 8 – Politika / Maži mažakalbiai  - NB: it’s paid subscription).

The findings of the Language Rich Europe research launched in Lithuania in May – read more about it here and view the LRE Lithuania profile on our website.

Summertime fun with languages

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It’s time for some summertime fun with languages! Below our Communications Manager David Sorrentino has listed a few fun facts about languages and multilingualism.
Which ones did you know already?  Do you know any other interesting facts you’d like to share?

  • The distress code ‘Mayday’ comes from the French for help me, ‘M’Aide’.
  • The United States does not have an official language.
  • ‘Taxi’ is a word that has the same spelling in many languages, including English, German, French, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese and more.
  • More people speak English in China than in the United States.
  • For over 600 years England’s official language was French.
  • The name “Canada” originates from an Indian word which means “village”.
  • Europe is home to roughly 225 indigenous languages or around 3% of the world’s total.
  • At least half of all the people on earth can speak two or more languages.
  • The city of London is linguistically diverse with around 300 languages spoken.
  • According to the BBC, Human communication might have been sparked by involuntary sounds such as “ouch” or “eek” or by communal activities such as heaving or carrying heavy objects, coordinated by shouts of “yo-he-ho”, etc. Another theory proposes that language evolved from the communication between mother and baby, with the mother repeating the baby’s babbling and giving it a meaning. Indeed, in most languages “mama” or similar “ma”-sounds actually mean ‘mother’.
    For more, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/guide/languages.shtml

More about the Madrid launch… and listen to an interview!

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Below is an article written by our Language Rich Project manager Aneta Quraishy about the Madrid launch, which took place on 7 June 2012. It also includes a link to an interview for Radio Nacional España 5, Radio Exterior in the program Otros Acentos.

Taking place at the European Commission building in Madrid Lenguas Riqueza del Europa (Language RIch Europe) launched in Spain. Key good news stories for Spain, where research focused on the three cities, Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla, lay in particular within the education domain. In the field of Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Spain came out very well positioned in comparison to the other participating 18 countries. Spanish bilingual schools (important to note that these are predominately English/Spanish) are beginning to serve as a model for other countries. You can listen to an interview Marta and I gave on Radio Nacional España 5, Radio Exterior in the program Otros Acentos.

Below are some key messages in Spanish and English:

…la posición de España, a la cabeza de los países analizados en integrar lengua y contenidos en Inglés en la Educación Primaria, por lo que nuestro sistema podría servir de modelo de otros países en el futuro. En Primaria además, España es pionera en vincular las lenguas ofertadas al Marco Común Europeo de Referencia de las Lenguas (MCERL). Según datos de la investigación, se destaca el apoyo del sistema educativo español en materia de idiomas en todos los niveles educativos desde Primaria hasta la Universidad, incluyendo también el respaldo al alumnado inmigrante. También se valoran positivamente iniciativas como la puesta en marcha del Plan Estratégico de Ciudadanía e Integración de 2007-2010 y el Plan Objetivos de la Educación para la década 2010-2020 que abogan el plurilingüismo y el impulso del aprendizaje de idiomas, la modernización e internacionalización de universidades y por un modelo de educación inclusiva, diversa e intercultural. También aparece como aspecto muy positivo el apoyo a las lenguas oficiales y regionales.

Areas for improvement include the fact that albeit European recommendations state that two foreign languages should be taught as compulsory, Spain only makes one language obligatory throughout its schooling system. This is however the reality in many European countries and UK children aged 14+ are not obliged to learn any foreign language for example.

Juan Pedro de Basterrechea, Instituto Cervantes, stressed how important it is not to make sweeping judgements with the study that is after all based only on three Spanish cities and rather that the study should be used to highlight interesting points, and serve as a way of raising the of the importance of multilingualism and language learning. We need to also look to the two regional profiles created of Catalonia and the Basque Country. Marta Genís, Universidad Antonio Nebrija, pointed out that in the Business domain, there is still room for improvement for Spanish companies where language learning is not given as much support as it should. She further highlighted that despite the benefits of subtitling; Spain continues to opt for dubbing both on TV and in the cinema.

Language Rich Europe Austria launch

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Language Rich Europe Austria launch took place on 19 June 2012 in Vienna, Austria. The article below is written by Martin Gilbert, Director British Council in Austria.

Photo: Panel at Language Rich Europe launch in Vienna

“In Austria we are not in heaven but we have senior attention on this topic which is good.” Quote overhead at Language Rich Europe launch in Austria referring to the attention that politicians pay to multilingualism.

The very successful launch event of the Language Rich Europe project in Austria was held in the historic buildings of the Diplomatic Academy on 19 June 2012. This was a particularly fitting location for the launch because of its long tradition of multilingualism. Dating back to 1753 the Diplomatic Academy was founded by Empress Maria-Theresia as the Oriental Institute, an educational institute where diplomats could learn foreign languages. The Empress had apparently been dismayed because she felt her diplomats’ language skills were insufficient and trade with the Ottoman Empire was suffering.

The Language Rich Europe event was a lively affair and well attended by around 60 participants from  organizations where multilingualism is recognized as an important social , commercial and educational topic. The guest list had been put together with much care in order to ensure that key Austrian figures in government, the public and private sectors, research, academic and NGO networks were informed and invited to attend. It was heartening to see partners involved in multilingualism from networks as varied as the Vienna Board of Education, the University of Vienna, the Österreichische Sprachenkomittee the Chamber of Labour, education think tanks and the Austrian Parents’ Association.

Martin Gilbert, Director Austria welcomed the participants and speakers and outlined the programme. He reminded participants of the aims of the Language Rich Europe project, especially the fact that the project has the relationship between prosperity and multilingualism in its strapline.  The link between Maria-Theresia’s 1753 Vienna and her desire to improve trade through multilingual diplomats and the project’s aims provided a nice bridge to the next two influential political figures who outlined federal and Viennese city policy positions on multilingualism.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior was represented by Michael Giradi and the City of Vienna was represented by Kurt Stürzenbecher, a member of the Vienna Provincial Parliament. Michael Giradi, Director of Communications in the Interior Ministry spoke briefly on the value of German and the value of multilingualism and on steps that the Austrian government takes to support multilingualism. He outlined the government position on multilingualism and painted a challenging and positive picture. Dr Stürzenbecher gave numerous examples of how the City of Vienna actively promotes multilingualism. Both speakers were positive and supportive of the  Language Rich Europe project.

Aneta Quraishy, the Senior Project Manager gave a lively presentation where she outlined the Language Rich Europe aims. This was followed by Professor Guus Extra from the Netherlands’ Tilburg University’s Centre for Studies of the Multicultural Society, then spoke for almost an hour giving an entertaining and inspiring review of the project. He emphasized that he was giving a “taster”. This proved to be an excellent approach as the material is quite complex. Professor Extra praised Austrian political support for the implementation of policies in multilingualism. All participants received packs with the Language Rich Europe results and Austria Country Profile. Professor Extra raised interest and awareness. After the event all participants also received an email with a link to the presentations and results that are held on the Austria British Council website. Here it is in case you are interested http://www.britishcouncil.org/de/austria-projects-lre-event.htm

After a coffee break that was full of networking and chatter, the second part of the event commenced. The aim was to create a workshop like atmosphere with significant audience involvement allowing participants to discuss and contextualize the results and contribute to the debate. A stated aim was that at the end of the discussion several themes would have emerged leading to topics for further workshops and input to the London Conference later in the year. The themes included early language learning, integration and language, tri-lingualism and teacher training. The discussion was led by Michael Wimmer,  Director of EDUCULT, and data collection partner for the project  in Austria. Feedback collected at the end of the event highlighted the effectiveness of the panel discussion. The panel was diverse in terms of gender, age, background and career. It consisted of Natasha Ghulan, a 19 year old law student who won the multilingual speech competition Sag’s Multi in 2011; Hans Staud, the owner of a successful company that actively promotes multilingualism; and Eser Akbaba, an experienced multilingual Austrian journalist from the Austrian Broadcasting Company (ORF).

I am going to finish this report with a series of quotes collected by a participant, Marlis Monsberger:

“In Austria we are not in heaven but we have senior attention on this topic which is good.“

“It is easier to be convinced than to be convincing.”

“Wien bekennt sich zur Vielprachigkeit.”

“If the mindset is not open to multilingualism – how can you make policies…”

“Mit mehreren Sprachen gehen mehrere Welten auf.”

“Wenn du eine Sprache sprichst bist du ein Mensch, wenn du mehrere Sprachen sprichst bist du mehrere Menschen und offener.“

“Coming from an international background is a privilege.“

“Nur wenn man die Muttersprache gut spricht, kann man auch gut Deutsch lernen.”

“Integration bedeutet Sprache und Kultur der neuen Heimat aufzunehmen ohne seine Wurzeln zu leugnen.“

Join the discussion by taking part in our UK Launch!

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To help us kick off our project at the London School of Economics on 28 June we want to open up the debate and get ideas from across the twittersphere on one of our major topics of discussion and even invite our Twitter followers to attend!

If you are interested in taking part in person please email Kirsi Suutarinen or DM us @languagerich (https://twitter.com/#!/LanguageRich) to take part as soon as possible, space is very limited.

Everyone will be able to take part using our twitter hash tag, #LREUK, during the event to give thoughts and ask questions on the main topics of discussion:

    • Nearly a million school age children have another language besides English, but we do not seem to value this “linguistic capital”.
    • There is great enthusiasm for learning a language from an early age, but provision is still less than in most European countries.
    • More learners abandon language learning at 14 than in any other of the countries surveyed; very few continue with a language after 16.
    • Advanced language learning is a class issue in England – the private sector and selective schools dominate at “A” level and despite brilliant exceptions “vocational” language learning is minimal.
    • Business and employers generally need languages; many say this, but very few actively promote them.
    • Our vibrant cities are effectively multicultural and multilingual and some lead the way in Europe.

The views of all those who respond will be shared with participants and panellists at the interactive workshop discussion happening 16:00h GMT on the 28th. We will have a screen showing tweets with #LREUK as they happen and we will be tweeting live from this discussion so you can follow along with debate and continue to send your views.

We welcome all who wish to take part so please spread the word and join us for this important event.

For more information on the event, please see our earlier blog post about it.

UK launch

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Did you know that…

“A flourishing voluntary “complementary” sector provides opportunities for children to learn languages spoken in their communities. This serves both primary and secondary school children (and earlier). A 2005 survey (Community Language Learning in England, Wales and Scotland, CILT, 2005) found provision in after school and Saturday classes for at least 61 languages. An innovative national programme, Our Languages, ran from 2008-2010 to promote and strengthen this provision and to draw it into contact with mainstream schools.  Under this scheme any language may be offered in primary schools, and some languages of the wider world are taught, usually in areas with large minority populations and/or as part of “language taster” and intercultural awareness programmes.”


The UK launch of Language Rich Europe will take place on 28 June 2012 at the London School of Economics.

Take part in the discussion via our Twitter hashtag for this launch: #LREUK. More details coming up soon on this blog and on Twitter.

The programme is as follows:

9.15 Registration & coffee
Venue: Lower Ground Floor, New Academic Building, LSE

10.00 – 10.45 Welcome
Dr Lid King, Director, The Languages Company
The importance of multilingualism
With short inputs from:
Nick Byrne, Director, London School of Economics Language Centre
Michael Carrier, Head of English Language Innovation, British Council
Baroness Jean Coussins, Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group Modern Languages
The Speak to the Future Campaign

10.45 – 11.45 Language Rich Europe
The project
Martin Hope, Director, British Council Benelux and Project Director, Language Rich Europe
European data
Guus Extra, Chair of Language and Minorities, Tilburg University, Netherlands
England and the UK context
Dr Lid King, Director, The Languages Company

11.45 – 12.55 Response from key stakeholders
Panel discussion
Chaired by: Bernardette Holmes, Director, Languages First, University of Cambridge Language Centre, & President, Association for Language Learning

Panellists:
• Richard Hardie, Chair, UBS & Vice President, Institute of Linguists
• Lizze Fane, Founder, Third Year Abroad
• Rosie Goldsmith, Independent Broadcaster
• Joe Brown, Deputy Headteacher, Old Oak Primary School, London
• Tony Travers, Director, LSE
• Humair Naqvi, Head of Government and Education EMEA, Rosetta Stone

12.55 – 13.00 Summing up
Dr Lid King, Director, The Languages Company

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
Served at the Lower Ground Floor (outside the Wolfson Theatre)

Language Rich Europe, UK workshop (London):

“The question of English: what are the particularities of an English-speaking country?”

14.00 – 14.05 Introduction to the Workshop
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Lid King, Director, The Languages Company

14.05 – 16.00 Workshop discussions:
Workshop 1
Venue: Room U101, First Floor, Tower 1 Building

Workshop 2
Venue: Room U103, First Floor, Tower 1 Building

Workshop 3
Venue: Room U108, First Floor, Tower 1 Building

16.00 – 16.30 Discussion of findings with interactive voting
Venue: Lecture Theatre U8, Ground Floor, Tower 1 Building
Lid King, Director, The Languages Company

16.30 – 18.00 Drinks reception
Venue: Café Bar, 4th Floor, Old Building

18.00 Close

Language Rich Europe Barcelona launch

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The Catalonia launch for Language Rich Europe took place on 7 June 2012 in the beautiful Arts Santa Monica building in Barcelona. The atmosphere was as lively and the conversations so vivid that we had to cut it off well after the scheduled time had passed. However, we managed to cover many interesting topics related to our research. Please read on to find out more about the launch itself as well as the linguistic situation in Catalonia, in this blog post written by Kirsi Suutarinen, our Communications Consultant. 

First we were welcomed by James McGrath, British Council Barcelona Bonanova teaching centre manager and a few words from LRE Sponsors Oxford University Press, Alicia Monge. Then our Communications Manager David Sorrentino introduced the project and spoke about the importance of languages for a stable and prosperous Europe.

Professor Guus Extra from the Netherlands’ Tilburg University’s Centre for Studies of the Multicultural Society, Babylon provided an overview of the project and best practice in language learning worldwide. He specifically mentioned a few places outside Europe: Melbourne, Australia, as well as Canada. He also stressed the fact that although this is not a comprehensive study and we are missing some countries altogether, this is nevertheless a very good beginning and provides a lot of material for discussion. The points raised during the workshops later in the autumn will be taken into account when the project enters its third stage.

F. Xavier Vila, Professor of Department of Catalan at the University of Barcelona concentrated on the findings of Catalonia. Although this study is not ranking countries but concentrates on best practice, when asked about it, Vila said that Catalonia was doing quite well, all in all. When analysing the results, it’s good to keep in mind though that the terminology is often very national: English is also an immigrant language. Which language is more/less important? What is the status of that language?

Some important points which Xavier Vila discussed with relation to Catalonia are listed below:

  • The status of Catalan in Catalonia is akin to that of a national language.
  • Foreign language provision at pre-primary level is offered by seven countries/regions (among them Catalonia and Spain). English, French and German are the most common languages offered.
  • In primary education all but two countries/regions offer extra support for newcomers in learning the national language. Catalonia offers significant extra support for newcomers, especially for Catalan (and Aranese Occitan in Val d’Aran).
  • In secondary education, additional support in the national language is provided in 21 countries/regions. Catalonia offers significant extra support for newcomers, especially in connexion with Catalan (and Aranese Occitan in Val d’Aran).
  • In further education, and more specifically, in Vocational and Education Training (VET) centres Catalonian centres offer considerable support for both Catalan and Castilian.
  • In all universities researched, instruction in Catalan and Castilian is provided, and Catalan is widely used.Other languages can also be used.
  • In Catalonia, Castilian predominates on TV while Catalan and Castilian are used in similar degrees on the radio. Catalonia provides TV broadcasting in a rich variety of foreign, regional/minority, and immigrant languages.
  • Most of the press was in Castilian and Catalan. Apart from those, overall, newspapers in English were the most common, followed by German, French, Russian, and Italian. Arabic and Turkish newspapers also figured prominently.
  • There is also room for improvement, particularly in the business section. In all of the businesses researched in Europe, 70% do not keep a record of staff language skills, and very few take advantage of EU programmes for language learning. Catalonia follows the European trends here. In addition, A relatively small percentage have reward or promotion schemes for language learning, with 11% reporting that it is widespread for business English and only 5% for the national language and other languages. Catalonia follows the European trends.