News

Hook Up– launching of EU funded project to create a CE foreign language learning gateway

Campus Europae’s Foreign language teaching experts met on 14th and 15th November at the University of Vienna to discuss results of intensive language courses and launch its newest project: Hook Up!, a Campus Europae Foreign Language Learning Gateway.

Hook Up! implemented with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union, aims at providing a platform to learn the 12 language of CE member universities (Finnish, French, German, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish, Russian and Turkish). Language learning opportunities will be offered before going abroad in order to enable a better integration of CE movers into the courses of the host university, during the stay abroad to provide students with specialized language requirements relating to their courses, and once CE movers return home,  it will also assist to further foreign language learning so that students have the opportunity to continue practicing the foreign language they just learnt and assist others CE-movers in the learning of the language of their home and host universities. This collaborative project is expected to deliver already in April 2009 its first language modules which will take students to breaktrhough level (A1) of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Others levels will continue to follow throughout the two year duration of the project.

Picture 1: the foreign languages teaching experts participating in the Hook Up! project

The European Commission’s evaluation reports all point to the fact that acquiring foreign language skills are an absolute necessity. However, the belief that mobility is sufficient to bring about quality language acquirement has been proven wrong by various studies on mobility. So, although mobility endows students with a natural platform to acquire foreign languages, effective learning of host countries languages especially minority languages requires a concerted effort to prevent students and academics falling back into the lingua francas of namely English, but also French and German to the detriment of others. An element ignored is that students rarely receive language instruction before they embark on their year abroad and then upon their return fail to build on their new language competence and often lose it over time naturally if not practiced resulting in wasted effort, time and money.

Following recommendations, many efforts are undertaken to motivate all Europeans to learn languages in and outside school, through formal and informal ways, in classrooms and chat rooms, however the bulk of today’s university students rarely speak more than two or three languages, one of which is English and seldom those known as minority languages. Moreover, once they have reached universities, the doorstep to an ever increasingly competitive labour market, students’ preoccupations centre in achieving high grades in their area to the detriment of language learning unless specifically linked to the chosen studies. Simultaneously, universities locked into cost efficiency, seldom rescue foreign language teaching from cut backs. However if mobility is not to remain the prerogative of a minority and is to counter the perverse effect of accentuating the “minorisation” of certain languages, systems have to be put in place to enable students to learn a foreign language intensively, in a relatively short period of time and as enjoyably as possible.

Since Campus Europae students are expected to study in 2 foreign countries at bachelor and master levels and effectively acquire 2 foreign languages for their degree, a cost efficient approach to language learning is of the essence for an ambitious project like Campus Europae. Now with Hook up!, building upon existing resources and adopting a blended approach where online and face to face learning will be effectively combined, EUF-CE aims to address present foreign language learning limitations. From a methodological viewpoint Hook Up! will not invent anything if it already exists focusing instead in unifying the delivery of the various languages offered by several language networks and make these available at all universities. The platform will be offered to Campus Europae students.

With the present project, EUF-CE will take further its foreign language teaching and by doing so contribute to foster multilingualism and the “Europeanization” of today’s students and universities.