English
A summary of the news for March.
For the Mercator research project ‘The added value of multilingualism and multilingual education’, two researchers who work on the project in San Sebastian have been in Leeuwarden/ Ljouwert from February 23 until March 3. The ‘added value-project’ is a comparative research project of the linguistic situation in the Basque Autonomous Community and in Fryslân.
The aim of the visit was twofold. First goal was a two day meeting with the project team based in Leeuwarden/Ljouwert about the project itself. Second goal was to get ‘hands on’ knowledge of the educational system en the position of language within education. For five days, all 4 researchers have visited different types of schools to observe some classes and see how schools, teachers and pupils/students use different languages. It was very informative to see the use of Dutch, Frisian and English within these schools in practice. At the end of March, the Frisian project team will visit some schools in the Basque country. After that, a comparative analysis will be made.
On Friday, 6 March, the EU funded Mercator Network of Language Diversity Centres had its kick-off meeting in Leeuwarden/Ljouwert. This network, the successor of the existing Mercator Network, has been extended with two new partners: the Research Institute of Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and the Mälardalen University in Eskilstuna (Sweden).
The Mercator Network was awarded three year funding from the EU’s Lifelong Learning Program and will contribute to the connection of multilingual communities across Europe, promotion of knowledge sharing and facilitation of structured exchange of best practice and cutting edge initiatives through its program of activities.
The Mercator Network will keep its focus on regional and minority languages, but will explicitly extend its activities into the field of smaller state languages and immigrant languages alike, with a thematic approach from the perspective of Media, Legislation and Education.
Main activities will be three major conferences of which the first will be held in September 2009 in Leeuwarden/ Ljouwert with the theme: “Developments in the curriculum of language teaching and learning at primary and secondary school level”.
In 2010 a conference will be held in Aberystwyth on the innovation in the use of traditional and new media and information technology. This conference will be prepared on a workshop in Eskilstuna.
In 2011 a conference will be held in Barcelona on the developments in the setting of minimum standards for Regional and Minority Languages in education and the essential legal provisions and requirements for their implementation. This conference will be prepared on a workshop in Budapest.
Outcomes will be published in annual reports describing best practices and the state-of-the-art in the field of multilingualism.
Contact person is Verena Steinbrink: vsteinbrink(a)fryske-akademy.nl
