Croatia, Osijek: Tin Ujevic school celebrates EDL
As in other years, the whole of the comprehensive school of "Tin Ujevic" in Osijek, Croatia was involved in celebrating the European Day of Languages. The fourth class prepared a chain of European flags. The phrases "I love you", "Thank you" and "Hello !" written in various European languages were used to decorate the flags. The fifth and seventh classes learned to sing "Frère Jacques" ("Brother John") in English, German and French. The eighth class worked for two weeks on a special project on Europe. The focus of the project was on the functioning of the different European Union institutions and their member states.
Greece, Athens: ALTE conference
As a contribution to the Council of Europe's European Day of Languages, the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) met in Athens at an event attended by policy-makers, university staff, and school-owners from across the region to discuss maintaining standards of language learning. The conference looked at the work of ALTE and the role of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages of the Council of Europe in the assessment of European language competency. The day-long programme included contributions from ambassadors from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Ireland: Léargas EDL celebration events
In the framework of the EDL celebrations, the National Relay for Ireland launched two exciting competitions mainly aimed at primary and post-primary schools. The first competition consisted of designing a logo for the European Day of Languages in Ireland while the aim of the second competition was to create awareness of the changing streetscapes of Ireland and to increase awareness of all the languages spoken there with photos or drawings of one side of an entire street showing shop fronts and advertisements in different languages. Léargas -Ireland's National Agency for the management of National, European and International co-operation programmes - also organised the Language Label Awards. The ceremony was held in Galway, the capital of the Irish speaking part of Irland, on 25th September. Rónán Mac Con Iomaire, from TG4, the Irish language television station, presented twelve project winners with their awards. EDL celebrations also took place in many Irish schools which hosted international food tasting events, language competitions, exhibition of posters and even Flamenco dancing workshops.
European Day of Languages at Guidobono School, Savona, Italy
Motto: Languages give children great opportunities to grow
Great fun and success, lot of satisfaction and more awareness of the importance of knowing and respecting other people, different languages and cultures. The celebration actually lasted two weeks: from 26th September to 7th October. Most of the activities involved two third classes of a secondary school but were also shared with students of other classes in and out the school and more and more students got involved in the celebration with creative and good events.
Solidarity, team work, creativity were absolutely significant for all activities: students from the 3rd forms created slogans, poems, acrostics. They also expressed the importance of languages and Europe in drawings, photos and short videos but pupils from all the classes became involved in the project: they prepared pictures, posters, flags for EDL. We made an exhibition of them in a big poster in the hall.
Belgium: Show your Tongue
Youth Sector of the "Centre culturel du Brabant wallon", Belgium
Show your tongue is the title of our new cultural season:
- Youth activities
- Young Theatre creations
- Fresh Art exhibitions
- Body talk and Show-events plus more.
This is going to be with the collaboration of all the Youth Centres and the local cultural centres of our region in Brabant wallon.
Georgia, European Language Portfolio
"This year schools and Universities started the academic year on 20th September, I went to Sighnagi branch of Tbilisi State University. We marked the beginning of the year and celebrated the EDL with students and teachers. Our guest was a President of Sorbonne University, Prof. Jean-Robert Pitte, with his wife and a Vice-rector of Tbilisi State University. Today on 27th in small groups of Sighnagi University we are making speeches on EDL and this year we begin implementation of th ELP there. The posters and stickers were given to schools in Tbilisi and to the Institute of Oriental Languages, where the students were informed about the ELD and its importance."
Kikilashvili Vladimer, Tbilisi State University Sighnagi
Austria: Activities’ Day on the European Day of Languages
Organiser: Realschule Heiligenkreuz am Waasen
- Greeting formulas – orally and in writing in different languages
- Singing English and Nigerian songs
- Creating cards with multilingual sayings
- Greek, Russian and Turkish tongue-twisters
- Chinese language characters (calligraphy)
- Greek alphabet (creation of name tags)
- Research into dialects: "Der Sprachkurs" by Felix Mitterer
- Translation of English popsongs into German and text modification (DVD)
- Persiflage of "Rapping Steirermen" (video)
- Spanish course for vacationists
EDL in Lithuania
Celebration of European Day of Languages in Kaunas Jonas Basanavicius Secondary School in Lithuania.
The pupils from year 5 up to year 7 did a project "My favourite word of a foreign language". The best posters were presented in the exhibition.
Spain: 100th Anniversary of its schools of languages
For more than a 100 years, the EEOOII (Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas, Official Schools of Languages) have been devoted to the teaching of modern languages.
WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT THESE SCHOOLS?
They constitute a network of government-run centres where adults of all ages have mastered the use of foreign languages and learned about the cultural background of the different cultures from which they stem.
Thanks to this institution, several generations have been able to study or work abroad, but they have also become more open-minded, more conscious and tolerant of other cultures, better and more cultivated people.
At present, they fulfil a much needed task: giving our students the tools to move freely in the global town the world has become.
The first of these schools was founded in 1911. During 2011 and 2012, different cities all over Spain have celebrated the anniversary of such a valuable institution.
