The worshop European Language Policies took place yeasterday in the Conference Hall of Sofia University.
The event was organized by Faculty of Philosophy, Faculty of Education and Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology, supported by the British Copuncil. Invited speaker was Dr Elidir King, Director of National Centre for Languages, UK. The official opening ended by promotion of two books: Languages in Europe towards 2020, The Language company, UK and Language Policies. Bulgaria - Europe, Sofia University Press, 2011.
The workshop was opened by Mrs. Tzvetanka Panova, British Council, who presented the global project "European Language Diversity". Bulgaria is one of the partners in it and the workshop is part of the project.
Dr Elidir King's presentation on "Europe 2010 - a new model of language diversity" attracted huge attention. The focus was on muliculturalism and identity of contemporary people, and Europeans in particular. Dr King argues that multiculturalism must help decreese the impact of religious and linguistic prejudice through language bridging different societies. This could be achieved by education from a very early age with view towards future. The need for "lingua franca”, which often but not always can be English, was also discussed, as well as new competencies and equality between languages.
The lecture was followed by a discussion, the questions were answered by Dr King and Assoc. Prof. Mara Stoycheva, Faculty of Philosophy. Dr King presented the book Languages in Europe towards 2020, which describes the national language policies and conclusions such as the need for changing the module 1+2 languages.
The second book is a joint project between the tree faculties: Faculty of Philosophy, Faculty of Education and Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology, represented by Assoc. Prof. Dr Maria Stoycheva, Prof. Albena Chavdarova and Prof. Dimitar Vesselinov. The book is in two part, the first of which gives a historical perspective of the languages taught since the Renaissance. The second part is dedicated to the language policies and and a research on more than 600 first year students on language competencies. The resuts so far are that students have a high level of langauge competencies in more than one foreign language, with Russian as a common second foreign language.
Original by Martina Angelova, abridged