KLAUS HAAS

Each year, on average, about 30,000 young people aged 14 and over work together with counterparts abroad on a project related to their education and training; they travel abroad to work with them in person, and spend time in their families. These are Joint Educational Projects. This practical use of for- eign languages enables pupils to improve their language skills and their motivation to learn languages, thus making them more confident in using their language skills.

The languages spoken in the partner countries are the target languages of the project. The role of lan- guage learning in a project is largely dependent on whether the partner languages form part of the cur-

(20_{) For detailed information on the products developed so far, please visit the Lingua Catalogue at the web site of the European}

Commission, DG Education and Culture: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/socrates/lingua/catalogue/home_en.htm.

(21_{) Former Lingua action E; from 2001, Comenius Language Projects.}

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Annual budget (ECU/EUR x 100 000) Number of projects accepted

riculum or not. If they do not, participating pupils receive some basic introduction to the partner lan- guage before their stay abroad. Accommodation in the families of their partners further stimulates the learning of the language as well as the culture of the host country. As in all other Lingua actions, pri- ority is given to projects involving partners speaking one of the least widely used and least taught lan- guages of the European Union. This action therefore gives many European pupils an opportunity to encounter and experience languages that they would normally not learn at school.

Besides this, it is evident that the pupils’ knowledge of any common languages used during the project work will also improve. There are also examples of schools that have introduced new foreign languages into their curricula as a result of their involvement in this action. It has promoted linguistic diversity very successfully: in 1997, less than 20% of all projects involved English-speaking partners as compared to the beginning of the 1990s when 40% of all participating schools had partners from the United Kingdom or Ireland. There has also been a small decline for French (from 23% to 15%), which in 1997 was about as popular as Italian, German and Spanish.

During a recent external evaluation of the Socrates programme, reference was made to this action that ‘makes it possible, according to the teachers interviewed, to motivate almost all beneficiaries to learn a language. The added value is all the greater as all European languages are covered and as the action targets by way of priority the professional and vocational streams (accounting for over half the partici- pants)’. The participants positively acknowledge the practical results of this action. Participation in Lingua has had a positive impact on pupils, primarily because 98% of the participants interviewed main- tained that their desire to learn had been stimulated as a result. According to 75% of those interviewed, the pupils also made progress in understanding the spoken language and oral expression. Clearly, incor- porating mobility into a coherent teaching context helps to improve the performance of pupils and thus the quality of their training.

Figure 6.5: Joint Educational Projects for language learning

4.

NEW INITIATIVES TO PROMOTE LANGUAGE LEARNING

Of course, the actions of the Socrates and Leonardo programmes are not the only ways in which the Commission promotes the teaching and learning of foreign languages. This section provides some examples of other recent initiatives in which it has been involved.

1000 2000 3000 4000 1000 2000 3000 4000 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991

Number of pupils moved (x 10) Number of teachers moved

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In many countries it is quite normal for most people to be able to use three languages. In the European Union, such people are well placed to take full advantage of European citizenship and of the single mar- ket. They are better able to move between countries for educational, professional or other reasons. Their linguistic skills are attractive to employers.

The European Commission wants everybody to share those benefits. In its 1995 White Paper on edu- cation and training Teaching and Learning: Towards a learning society, it set the objective of helping all EU citizens to be proficient in three European languages.

The White Paper considers language learning at all ages. The emphasis is on new ideas and on best practice. The White Paper proposed highlighting such best practice by the award of a European ‘Label’ and this idea has now been implemented (see below).

The White Paper has also been linked with important developments in the following areas: ‘early’ lan- guage learning, at pre-school and primary level; learning other subjects through the medium of a for- eign language; multilingual comprehension (between people speaking different languages); the quality of language learning programmes and materials; exchange of information. These have been partly funded by the Socrates/Lingua actions and by the Leonardo da Vinci programme.

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