Kristina Cunningham - Multilingualism and straight bananas - languages in the EU policy priorities

Kristina Cunningham - Can you imagine getting paid to promote language learning and linguistic diversity in Europe? That's my job! The guideline was agreed between EU Heads of State and Government back in 2002: every European citizen should be taught not only one, but two foreign languages in school, and language learning should begin at a very early age. So do all Europeans speak three languages? No way – as European polyglots you know very well that you are a tiny minority. The results of the EU Member States' language education efforts have been disappointing, even for the first foreign language, which in almost all cases is English. We'll take a look at the particular role of English as a global lingua franca, the advantages and the negative side effects for people with English as their mother tongue. I am going to demonstrate just how bad a problem the general lack of language skills is – for individuals, for businesses and for society. I shall then convey some inside information on how the European cooperation in the field of education and training works and discuss how multilingualism is supported and encouraged in different ways at European level. Iceland is not an EU Member State but is in the fortunate position to benefit from full participation in the EU funding programmes for education and culture, such as Erasmus+. Will this be the case also for the UK in the future – who knows?

introductory video credit: CGP Grey 2013

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Filming & Editing: Simos Batzakis

Видео Kristina Cunningham - Multilingualism and straight bananas - languages in the EU policy priorities канала Polyglot Conference