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Multilingualism

3. Multilingual Education and Training

The Commission has developed a series of programmes to promote language learning and diversity, each designed to meet the needs of key groups in society – whether students or teachers, museums or NGOs. Specific funding opportunities are detailed here, by category.

The Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) is the main umbrella programme for multilingualism projects, with 7 billion euros funding for the period 2007-2013. It is made up of four targeted schemes:

Comenius: school education: nursery, primary and secondary schools;
Erasmus: higher, university and post-university education;
Grundtvig: adult education and other education pathways;
Leonardo da Vinci: vocational education.

A further Transversal programme includes measures to:

a) Ensure policy co-operation;
b) Break down language barriers;
c) Make the most of new technologies and practices;
d) Publicise results.

Beyond these sub-programmes, language schemes are also run via Key Activity 2 Languages (ex-Lingua).

ERASMUS is the flagship scheme, presenting many Europeans with their first taste of multilingualism. Since 1987, over 1.5 million students have been sent from one participating country to another, for three months to a year. The next landmark goal is to arrange three million exchanges by 2012.

Beyond this, the Commission provides grants for training language teachers abroad, placing foreign language assistants in schools, funding class exchanges to motivate pupils to learn languages, etc. These mobility schemes are continuously being extended to as many EU citizens possible.

Youth exchanges, town twinning projects and the European Voluntary Service also promote multilingualism. Since 1997, the Culture programme has financed the translation of thousands of literary works from and into European languages.

Learning gaps

Even with all of these programmes, barriers remain for both adults and children. Almost half of EU states offer just one foreign language during compulsory schooling; and language provision is even worse during vocational training.

Adults tend to be monolingual if they have low qualifications and job positions. These people cite lack of time and motivation as the main reasons for not learning languages. So, to make the most of available resources, training needs to be targeted in scope but flexible in supply.

Training needs to move away from simple 'Business French' and create more courses like 'Spanish for Engineers, Electricians', etc. It also needs to be more accessible: for example teaching at the workplace during or around office hours, and secondly tailoring training to specific roles and careers.

The Commission is also promoting teacher mobility between member states. Granting time abroad to language teachers is key to improving fluency in the languages they teach as well as their inter-cultural skills. This is becoming all the more important, as teachers are increasingly faced with classrooms where students have different mother tongues. For instance, pupils at Greenford High School in west London speak more than 80 languages.

Overall, says the Commission, more languages should be taught, especially second foreign languages. In turn, these should fit with local circumstances, like nearby borders or communities speaking different languages. Partnerships between schools, training centres and foreign institutions can help bridge these gaps, while new technologies pave the way to new approaches: like distance teaching via the Internet or video-conferencing in classrooms.

New structures and media

Language learning outside of formal education should make greater use of all kinds of media, new technologies, and cultural and leisure activities, according to the Commission. There is growing appreciation of the benefits of passive learning, for example listening to music or watching subtitles on films and TV series. Closely linked to this, information and communication technologies (ICT) need to reflect current trends and languages, says i2010 — the EU's framework policy for the information society.

Under this plan, content should be created in various languages on multiple platforms, straddling national or language barriers. One goal is to create a Single European Information Space by ensuring seamless access to ICT-services: encouraging the roll out of rich, multilingual content.

This means creating a reliable infrastructure and fertile environment to empower the next generation of directors, producers and programme makers – people who can break down barriers both culturally and technologically.