English
A summary of the news for February.
On 3 – 4 June 2010, the Mercator Research Centre and the Ministry of Education of the Basque Government will organise this seminar in Leeuwarden/Ljouwert, Fryslân, The Netherlands. Their joint research project “Added value of multilingualism and multilingual education” will be the central focus of the seminar. This multi-annual project is carried out by the Mercator Research Centre in collaboration with the University of the Basque Country. It is a comparative study of the Basque Autonomous Community and the province of Fryslân. It aims at:
1) analyzing bilingualism and multilingualism as a resource for the individual and society
2) analyzing bilingualism and multilingualism as a resource at school
Keynote speakers at the seminar are:
• Maria-Louisa Garciá Gurrutxaga (Ministry of Education, Basque Government)
• Jasone Cenoz (University of the Basque Country)
• Durk Gorter (University of the Basque Country - IKERBASQUE)
• François Grin (University of Geneva)
• Ulrike Jessner (University of Innsbruck)
• Reinier Salverda (Fryske Akademy)
The participation fee is 150€ (this includes lunches, two conference dinners and a social activity). Please register before 16 May.
Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning will organise a Multilingual Early Language Transmission (MELT) expert seminar in Leeuwarden, on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 April, 2010.
The project focuses on four European regions with a regional or minority language: Frisian in the Netherlands, Breton in France, Welsh in the UK and Swedish in Finland.
The MELT project will do a comparative study on the provisions, approach en available resources in the different regions. This also means looking at information for parents on the benefits of multilingual pre-primary education in the own mother tongue, and the available teaching resources. The study will make recommendations based on the best examples aiming at the providing parents and teachers with reliable information for their “informed choice” on bilingual or multilingual education.
The project is funded by the European Commission and will last two years (November 2009 – October 2011). For the initial opening seminar of the project around 40 experts and specialists will be invited to identify best practices in the field, to exchange views and experiences, and to develop common strategies.
For details, including the programme and registration form, please go to the conference site.
