English
A summary of the news for April.
What impact do social media like Twitter, Facebook and Hyves have on minority languages and their function? This and many other interesting issues concerning the changing role of minority languages were presented and discussed from Wednesday, April 6 through Friday, April 8 in Leeuwarden.
Language scientists and practitioners from around the world came to the capital of the Dutch province of Fryslân to talk and learn about this subject. It was the second conference organised by the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning from the Fryske Akademy in collaboration with the SOAS-UCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Languages of the Wider World in London. Through the cooperation of these two institutes a bridge will be built between the minority languages in Europe and the languages of the wider world.
The program included a number of interesting presentations, given by researchers, teachers, policy makers and students from 15 countries.
Speakers included: • Richard Bourhis (picture), Professor of Social Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada • Ofelia Garcia, Professor of Urban Education, The City University of New York, USA • Waldemar Martyniuk, Executive Director, The European Centre for Modern Languages, Graz, Austria • Ann Pauwels, Professor of sociolinguistic, SOAS, University of London, UK • Miquel Strubell, director of Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain • Lid King, National Director for Languages in London, UK • Ilze Brands Kehris, Director of the OSCE in The Hague.
Participants and organisation look back on a succesfull event, with a good atmosphere and a lot of attention from the local and regional press. Not only was the conference mentioned in the regional newspapers, live interviews with speakers could be followed on the radio and even the daily news show on Frisian television, 'Hjoed', payed attention to it.
The new book ‘Trilingual Primary Education in Europe’ (picture) describes some developments with regard to the provisions of trilingual primary education in minority language communities of the European Union.
This book aims to describe the actual state of trilingual primary schooling in a number of multilingual regions in Europe in the first decade of the 21st century. This study is essentially an update of the study which reflected the situation at the turn of the century (Beetsma 2002). The publication proves that the situation in various regions during the last decade has changed greatly.
Through collaboration with the Ministry of Education of the Basque Country and the Network of Schools this publication has been made possible. The book ‘Trilingual Primary Education in Europe’ was presented at the International Conference organized by SOAS-UCL and Mercator Research Centre in Leeuwarden, the province Fryslân (Netherlands). Director of the Fryske Akademy, Prof. dr. Reinier Salverda presented the first copy to Mrs. Jannewietske de Vries, the Frisian Minister of Finance, Recreation and Tourism, and Language and Culture.
In this updated study the definition of trilingual education is applied in accordance with the commonly used definition of bilingual education: all three target languages are to be taught as a school subject as well as used as a medium of instruction during a relevant number of teaching hours. In the various regions multilingual schooling shows much more variation in classroom settings, didactic methods and attainment targets than can be inferred from general statements on bi- and trilingual education.
All chapters contain several descriptions of trilingual primary schooling in the regions: Aosta Valley, Aran Valley, the Balearic Islands, Carinthia, Catalonia, Fryslân, Luxembourg, North Frisia, the Swedish community in Finland, the Basque country and the Valencian community. These descriptions vary from situations with a strict distinction in teaching and use of the target languages, through regions where a mixture of language education models is applied, to educational settings with interesting developments in the direction of a total immersion approach as described in previously described case studies.
If you are interested in purchasing one ore more copies of this book, please send us an email.
On Wednesday April 20, Anéla, the Netherlands’ branch of AILA, organised a conference on multilingualism and language policies in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Over 100 participants discussed in three streams: (a) second language acquisition and education; (b) language policy and levels of language command; (c) immigration policies and access thresholds. The aim of the conference was not only to inform each other on current issues of research, but also to define relevant topic for the research agenda as well as the urgencies for language policy at national and international level.
Current issues of research are focussed around early foreign language learning; common minimum standards for attainment levels of language skills in primary, secondary and vocational education; and, threshold levels and entrance exams for immigrants. In the discussion on education the main focus was on continuity of teaching and learning, in particular language skills and the holistic approach (subject and medium of instruction). The role of the teacher in research project was re-defined as co-researcher who during the data-collecting and analysing period could improve his own education by reflecting on his teaching skills and the multilingual interaction with the pupils.
Discussion on language policies and integration focussed on the value of entrance exams for the real integration of new comers. It was felt that there is a huge gap between main stream political ideology aiming at assimilation versus scientific ideas and research results on multilingualism of society and plurilingualism of the individual citizens. Education can contribute to the improvement of language command, but the success is never guaranteed.
