Tag Archives: multilingualism

Call for Papers – 2nd International Scientific Conference Sustainable Multilingualism: Research, studies, culture

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The conference, which will be held from 27-28 September 2013 in Kaunas, Lithuania, will assemble international researchers, experts, language teaching professionals, and other stakeholders to share research insights and discuss multilingualism viewed from perspectives of various fields: language policy, language didactics, learning and acquisition, foreign language teaching, linguistics, literature, culture, education science, history, philosophy, psychology, translation, business, and other fields and branches of sciences. The conference discussions will proceed in:

- Plenary sessions

- Round table discussion: Issues in developing plurilingual citizen for multilingual world

- Regular, poster and virtual sessions

- Language forums: Conference participants are invited to initiate Language Forums on specific issues of language teaching/learning, sharing their experience in the language they teach (e.g. Spanish Language Forum).

Call for papers:

- 10 June 2013 – registration and abstract submission
- 20 June 2013 – notification of acceptance

Publications:
- ISBN publication of conference programme/ abstracts.
- ISBN on-line conference proceedings.
- Selected articles will be published in the refereed journal DARNIOJI DAUGIAKALBYSTĖ/ SUSTAINABLE MULTILINGUALISM. Print copy: ISSN 2335-2019, Online copy: ISSN 2335-2027, Journal website: http://uki.vdu.lt/sm

Deadline for article submission – 20 October 2013

More information can be found on the conference website

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KVIETIMAS: ANTROJI TARPTAUTINĖ KONFERENCIJA DARNIOJI DAUGIAKALBYSTĖ: TYRIMAI, STUDIJOS, KULTŪRA, 2013 m. rugsėjo 27-28 d. 

Konferencijos tikslas – suburti tyrėjus, tarptautinius ekspertus, kalbų mokymo profesionalus bei kitus socialinius dalininkus pasidalinti savo įžvalgomis apie daugiakalbystę, žvelgiant iš įvairių mokslo sričių perspektyvų: kalbos politika, kalbos didaktika, mokymasis ir įsisavinimas, užsienio kalbos mokymas, kalbotyra, literatūra, kultūra, švietimas, istorija, filosofija, psichologija, vertimas, verslas ir kitos mokslo šakos bei sritys.

- PLENARINIAI POSĖDŽIAI
- APSKRITOJO STALO DISKUSIJA „Individualios daugiakalbystės plėtojimas daugiakalbio pasaulio iššūkiams“
- ŽODINIŲ, STENDINIŲ IR VIRTUALIŲ PRANEŠIMŲ SESIJOS
- KALBŲ FORUMAI Konferencijos dalyviai kviečiami patys inicijuoti kalbų forumus ir diskutuoti bei dalintis patirtimi, sprendžiant jų mokomos kalbos problemas.

Svarbios datos:

- Registruotis ir pranešimo anotaciją prašome atsiųsti iki 2013 m. birželio 10 d.
- Apie pranešimo priėmimą informuosime iki 2013 m. birželio 20 d.

Publikacijos:
- Konferencijos programa ir santraukų medžiaga su ISBN kodu.
- Elektroninis konferencijos straipsnių rinkinys su ISBN kodu.
- Atrinkti straipsniai bus publikuojami referuojamame moksliniame žurnale DARNIOJI DAUGIAKALBYSTĖ/ SUSTAINABLE MULTILINGUALISM. 

Spausdintinė žurnalo kopija: ISSN 2335-2019, Elektroninė žurnalo kopija: ISSN 2335-2027, Žurnalo tinklapis:
http://uki.vdu.lt/sm

Straipsniai publikavimui pateikiami iki 2013 m. spalio mėn. 20 d.

Konferencijos tinklapis:
http://daugiakalbyste.vdu.lt

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!

Poliglotti4.eu invites you to its Closing Conference

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Poliglotti4.eu, a project co-funded with the support of the European Commission would like to announce its closing conference One continent, many tongues: a spotlight on Europe’s linguistic wealth in Parma/Italy, 15-16 of November.

Bringing together experts and multilingual talents from across Europe, the conference will highlight the outcome of Poliglotti4.eu’s project achievement and will also raise the voice of Europeans who live and work in multilingual Europe representing diverse fields such as science, art and culture, education, economics, politics and public spaces. The conference is part of the Parma Theatre Festival.

We cordially invite you to attend the conference and to join us for a lively debate throughout the two exciting conference days. The voice of civil society will be raised to take an active part in the policy making process on how Europe’s linguistic rich diversity will be enhanced as asset of Europe’s citizens.

Please consult our Conference Page for practical details, a draft conference programme and in order to register for the event. Participation is free of charge.

The long-term goal of the Poliglotti4.eu project is to put multilingualism on the agenda so that appropriate multilingual policies are developed and implemented everywhere in Europe at the grass-roots level. Consult our comprehensive website www.poliglotti4.eu for a wealth of information in the area of multilingualism in Europe.

Join the cause to promote multilingualism in Europe by supporting our project! You can also get involved by actively contributing to our Facebook and Twitter pages and by leaving a comment or an example of best practice and the different sub sections on our website. For more information on the project and on how you can get involved please contact us!

Language Rich Europe launch – Wales

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At a time of globalisation, troubled economies and increasing migration, knowledge of foreign languages is critical to building social bridges, improving job prospects and enhancing competitiveness in Europe.

How well is Wales responding to these challenges?

 

The Welsh launch of Language Rich Europe will take place on Tuesday 9 October at the Pierhead Building, Cardiff. 

The programme is as follows:

Welcome and introduction from Simon Dancey, Director British Council Wales

Address by the Presiding Officer, Rosemary Butler AM

The Importance of Multilingualism, overview from Professor Colin Williams, Cardiff University

Language Rich Europe Cross National Findings – Aneta Quraishy, Senior Project Manager, British Council

Language Rich Europe Wales and UK results – Dr Lid King, Director The Languages Company

Panel discussion – Aled Eirug (British Council Wales Advisory Committee Chair), Professor Colin Williams (Cardiff University), Professor Stephen Hagen (Newport University), and Dr Lid King (Languages Company)

Events: Supporting multilingualism through language assessment

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The European Parliament together with ALTE and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations invites you to a series of events on Supporting multilingualism through language assessment.

You can find out more about it, including how to attend, on the European Commission’s website.

Key findings: Official Documents and Databases

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Language Rich Europe research provides a rich source of cross-national insights. In the first part of the LRE survey we examined whether official documents and databases on languages were present in the countries/regions surveyed.

We believe that the existence of official documents supporting language diversity, and the construction of databases mapping languages spoken, will strengthen awareness of multilingualism in any national or regional context and will also lead to better education policies. Why do you think it is important for your country to map languages spoken there? What could be done to improve this practice of mapping linguistic diversity?

Some key findings in this area include:

■■ Legislation on national and R/M (Regional Minority) languages is provided

in almost all countries/regions surveyed, on foreign languages in 14 countries/regions, and on immigrant languages in only six countries/regions.

■■ Official language policy documents on the promotion of national and foreign languages are available in almost all countries/regions, on R/M languages in 18 countries/regions and on immigrant languages in only four countries/regions.

■■ The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) has been ratified by Parliament in 11 out of the 18 countries surveyed, and signed by Government in France and Italy. In Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania and Portugal it has neither been ratified nor signed.

■■ The largest numbers of officially offered R/M languages in education emerge in South-Eastern and Central European countries. In Western Europe, Italy and France are the clearest exceptions to this general rule, as they offer a wide variety of languages. The concepts of ’regional‘ or ’minority‘ languages are not specified in the ECRML but immigrant languages are explicitly excluded from it. In Western European countries, immigrant languages often have a more prominent appearance than R/M languages but enjoy less recognition, protection and/or promotion.

■■ Most countries/regions are familiar with official language data collection mechanisms and most of them address three types of languages: national languages, R/M languages and immigrant languages. Five out of 24 countries/regions have no language data mechanisms at all: Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Denmark, Greece and the Netherlands. Portugal only collects data on the national language.

■■ There is also variation in the major language question(s) asked in official nation/region wide language data collection mechanisms. Over half of the countries/regions surveyed ask a home language question, while others ask about the main language and/or the mother tongue.

North by Southwest radio programme dedicated to Language Rich Europe

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Great news: Language Rich Europe has been featured on Spain’s North by Southwest radio programme! Please find the audio file of the programme below. It was broadcast on Radio Exterior (Spanish World Service) on Monday 16 July 2012, and will be repeated again next week.

In the programme, Nicolas Jackson from British Council Spain interviews Language Rich Europe’s Project Director Martin Hope and Senior Project Manager Aneta Quraishy as well as Juan Pedro de Basterrechea from Instituto Cervantes, Marta Genís from Universidad Antonio de Nebrija and Xavier Vila from the University of Barcelona.

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.“